


And The City Dreamt Of Me

by stammed_cleams



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High, The Unsleeping City
Genre: Crossover, Danger, Dream Magic, Fight Scenes, Fighting, Friendship, Gen, New York, Religion, Separate Worlds, adjusting to the city, long story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23617123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammed_cleams/pseuds/stammed_cleams
Summary: The Bad Kids vanish from Elmville and appear in the gutters of a massive, non-magical, all-human city called New York. There they meet a group of powerful beings with no clue as to what they are or how they got there. In the rain of the city that never sleeps, there seem to be dangers at every turn - and forces that can do them more harm than anything they've faced before. They'll have to rely on each other to survive in this new place, get over the tensions between them, and help to educate the humans around them, old to magic and new, on what exactly is going on...
Relationships: Fabian Seacaster & Adaine O'Shaughnessey, Fig Faeth/Ayda Aguefort, Gorgug Thistlespring & Fig Faeth, Kingston Brown & Pete the Plug, Kristen Applebees/Tracker O'Shaughnessey, Pete the Plug & Kristen Applebees, Ricky Matsui & Pete the Plug, Riz Gukgak & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, The Bad Kids - Relationship, The Dream Team - Relationship
Comments: 137
Kudos: 304





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello gang!!! this is a sort of experimentally long fic, but if its received well, i'll keep writing. you should know that the timeline in fantasy high terms is after sophomore year, but unsleeping city is technically a small au??? its not technically before the events, but (SPOILERS) kug is in it and fine so ig they did something else in this version. i just didn't want to leave him out for a fun crossover. suffice to say if you havent gotten through both series please dont read!! sorry newbies, but this fic isn't for you!! my last fic was very successful, so i've been loving the response....... hope you guys can get into this one too!!!

It was cold. Wet, and cold. 

That much Riz knew even before he pulled his heavy eyes open. He was soaked to the bone, button down shirt sticking unpleasantly to the form of his body, water falling in buckets onto his face. There was an unpleasant taste in his mouth, a shiver in the deepest core of his gut. Something near him smelled of piss and smoke. He was too weak to move.

Above him, just barely audible over the sound of the torrential downpour, were two voices. A man, and a woman, each with the same very odd accent. 

“Aww, he looks kinda sad. All wet and everything,” said the woman. 

“Yeah but… but what is he?” answered another voice - gruff, unpleasant. 

“You think he’s like, one of those elves, like the Christmas ones?”

“Looks kinda green for an elf.”

“No, but - but that’s what I’m saying, it’s part of the color scheme, like maybe we’re just… seeing him out of context, cause he doesn’t have the red on,” the woman hypothesized, her voice upbeat. 

The male voice grumbled raspily. “Kinda green for an elf,” he chided, “And what would he be doing this far South? What the Hell’s he doing here?”

On that note, Riz’s mind snapped the rest of the way back to him, and his strength started to come back in pulses, matched only by the pain that was steadily growing in his lungs. He gasped, eyes still shut, and with the stabbing sensation he went quickly into a coughing fit, rainwater spilling out between his pointed teeth. When his lungs were cleared he gasped again, and this time his eyes flicked open, lantern-light yellow in the neon New-York night. Above him, the night was black - absolutely starless. He was in an alleyway, rough concrete below him and steady, burgundy bricks beside him. Immediately, in a hunt for any detail that may help him, he looked across his body to the city around him. Across from him, in the corners of his vision were the strangest of colors, brilliant pinks and blues and greens in the night, made of lines scribbled across his vision like marker streaks. Behind them were buildings, so close that they all touched and so small he couldn’t help but wonder what any of them were for. In front of the buildings and the lights was a street covered in cars of all kinds, and thriving with people. A lot of them were dressed funny, but most of them seemed to be human. He couldn’t tell much else at a quick, frantic glance. 

“Hey, kid?”  
In his haste to understand where he was Riz had nearly forgotten the voices, and as he looked just above him he jumped into a sitting position, and scrambled into the brick behind him. 

There, in the darkness, were two figures. The first was a woman, seemingly human, with olive skin and soft brown eyes, her face covered in makeup. Her hair, brown and straight, was piled outrageously on her head like a beehive, and she wore a low-cut shirt a more startling shade of pink than the neon lights across the street. The other figure was - by every definition - a rat. It was now that Riz realized they were much scarier up close, those emotionless, beady eyes and the jagged, yellowed bucked teeth. It was filthy, dirt, grime and rainwater making spikes out of mousy brown fur. It wore a once-green cape, mud seeping up through the tattered edges, and held a dirt-crusted metal pipe in its little pink hand. Riz watched wide-eyed as the other hand reached, its palm up in a cautionary gesture. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said the rat, “I’m not here to hurt you, kid, relax!” He paused a moment, tiny black eyes squinting. “You can… you can see me, you can see that I’m a giant rat?”

“Uh…” whispered Riz, finding his voice was somewhat weak. He cleared his throat and looked him over. “Um, you… you seem to be a rat, yes.”

“...Huh,” the rat said, and looked at the woman. 

“Hi, Sofia Bicicleta, hey, I really hate to be rude but I have  _ never  _ seen anything like you before,” her eyes went wide for a second, shaking her head and grinning. She was almost as frightening as the rat. “We were just trying to figure out what exactly you are, again, so sorry if that’s coming off as rude.”

Riz creased his eyebrows. “I’m a goblin?” he answered. The woman and the rat exchanged bewildered looks.

“You from the sixth burrow, little buddy?” asked the Rat.

“Burrow, I don’t- who are you, what am I doing here?!” Riz asked. He tried to press himself against the wall, and upon doing so he found he didn’t quite have the strength so stand up easily. At the same time he realized how colossally cold he was, the freeze running straight to his core, teeth chattering. He made another effort to stand, and with a groan, he was able to go from standing to leaning against the bricks. “Where are the bad kids?” he breathed, and took out his crystal. No service. Where the Hell was this?

“Alright, kid, just hold on a second,” said the rat. He squinted, “You have any idea how you got here, where you are?”

“No,” answered Riz.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s - it’s Riz. Riz Gukgak.”

“Alright, Riz. We’re gonna figure this out.”

“Kug.” The woman spoke up, and the two of them looked over. She was looking urgently out into the street, where a child and her mother were lingering on the sidewalk. The child was pointing, and said, ‘look mommy, he’s green!’. The mother, it seems, had begun disregarding her before looking over and slowing to a bewildered stop. At the stare of the woman with the big hair, however, she recollected herself and mumbled some instruction to the girl, before holding her hand tighter and pulling her along. She wasn’t the only one either - soon her glances lead the patch of sidewalk just outside the alleyway to serve as molasses, with all but the most hardened New Yorkers pausing just for a moment to try and put together what they were seeing. 

“ _ Shit!”  _ the rat - apparently ‘Kug’ - hissed. “Sof, get in front of him!”

“What, what’s the matter?” demanded Riz, trying to see the looks from the crowd. 

As Sofia slid to the side to block Riz from view, the rat chided bitterly, “You didn’t tell me you were outside the umbral arcana, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“I-I don’t even know what that is!” Riz stammered.

“We need to get him out of here.”

“Kug, give him your cape!” Sofia advised. Before he knew it, Kug was being draped in a muddy green cape. 

“Over the ears, kid,” the Rat commanded.

“Who the Hell are you p-”

“Over the ears!”  
With an annoyed scoff, Riz folded his long ears and pulled the hood of the cape on over them. “Alright, now will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?!” cried Riz.

“Short version?” asked Kugrash gruffly, “You’re in New York City, whoever your friends are don’t seem to be here, I’m Kugrash, I’m a big… fuckin’ rat guy, as you can see, and this is Sofia, and she’s a kickass monk hairdresser who’s about to pick you up and carry you to the Grammarcy Occult society via some crazy parkour shit from building to building. Sof?”  
“Sorry about this buddy, make sure you hold on tight.”

“No no no no no-” Riz began to object. His hand went for his gun before, with a slight squeak, he was loaded easily over her shoulder like a sack of flour, and watching the ground fall what seemed to be miles away from him as the woman shot 30 feet straight into the air. While he tried to make his mind race with plans of defeating this woman and getting his questions answered, all that made its way in was sheer terror, his teeth gritting and his gut churning as his arms clamped like a vice around her shoulder. What he had intended as a question of polite interest came out as a scream the same way it did on a roller coaster. “ _Where are you taking me?!_ ”  
“Don’t even worry about it, everything’s fine!” said the woman, and launched from one skyscraper to another, the mysterious, ravenous city unfurling out before them. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adaine and Fabian appear in the middle of central park. Adaine seems to know more than she's letting on, and Fabian is the victim of a strange attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good e'en, cherished brothers sisters and siblings....... i am OVERWHELMED by the response to this fic in a mere DAY!!!! i cant believe this fandom is so rich..... for that reason i have another chapter! i probably can't keep up daily updates (bc ill run out of stuff) but! for now im eager to get more attention so what the hell, i'll plunk it on here. this one's a whole lot longer!! expect chapter length variation, im sorta just going with the flow on this one...

“Adaine! Adaine, are you alright?”  
Adaine blinked her eyes open to the sound of birds, and the sensation of heavy rain across her face and soaking into her clothes. She couldn’t see anything but a watercolor painting through her car-window glasses, the night sky totally black above her. She had been awake for some time - half awake, lingering in the senses of the city. But this was new. 

She sat up on the park bench, a handful of pigeons startling and flying off of her shoes. Around her was a long field of greep, tinted yellow by the light of the occasional streetlamp. People were scarce here, and the night was lonely. Shifting to sit upright on the bench, she took off her glasses, wiped them off on her jeans, and put them back on. There she saw Fabian kneeling, leaning over her. He didn’t look great - he was leaning with one hand on one of the arms of the bench, his white hair wet and sticking to his face. He had circles under his eyes, and his face was pale, confusion lingering in his one good eye. Upon seeing her sit up, he sighed with relief. “Oh, Adaine, thank God you’ve come out of it, we’ve been, uh, uh, taken somewhere, I don’t think we’re in uh, Elmville,” he said, a slight panic to her voice. 

Adaine cocked her head. “Fabian?” she asked, with a polite confusion, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you- what do you mean?” he stammered. “That’s what I’m trying to say, I have no idea why either of us are here, we’re not supposed to be, I can be sure of that!”

Adaine looked around at the long, green plot of land, the occasional person in a ragged coat trying to find shelter from the rain beneath a tree or a small building. Rain was pouring down heavy and blurring the air, nothing but the night above her. It was rainier now than it usually was, but it was still just as familiar as always. “This is- no, this New York,” she knew immediately. 

“What’s New York?” asked Fabian.

“It’s… well, I mean…” she looked into the distance for a moment, before biting her tongue once again. She knew this city - she had been to this city before. Why she’d never told any of the bad kids was still something of a mystery to her - it had always just felt like something she didn’t need to bring up. It was something just for  _ her,  _ New York. Like a birthday present, or her favorite flavor popsicle. It was never  _ for  _ them, New York. She looked at Fabian again, and then stood up. “I don’t understand I’m…” she took a breath, “Fabian, I think there’s… a problem,” she said.

“I am… inclined to agree,” Fabian said, obviously. With a wince he leaned on the arm of the bench and rose to his feet. He groaned, holding his midriff and nearly wobbling back down again. He looked sharply at Adaine. “Why are you so…”

“What?”

“Fine?” he asked. 

Adaine looked down at herself, feeling absolutely nothing wrong with her. She felt as if she’d just woken up from a long, pleasant nap. It certainly didn’t feel as cold and unpleasant as Fabian made it look, she thought, watching him there shivering like a stray dog. “Well, I… don’t know,” she said, more irritably than she’d expected. “I mean, I just got here, too…”

“Well, you seem to know what this place is better than I do!” Fabian objected, “Why is that… exactly?”

“None of your business!”

“Adaine!”

Adaine paused for a moment, calming herself and looking shamefully down. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Let’s just… would you like to get out of the rain? If you follow this path here there’s a little gazebo, which should be good to stay in for a while.”

Fabian put his bewilderment on hold for a moment to make way for trust. “...Alright,” he said. 

Adaine lead the way through a newly muddied field. This was the first time she felt her sneakers sink through the mud, felt the rain on her face, though she knew the smells and the sights of this place all too well. Just down this path for a little while, even through the rain, to the gazebo, a lovely off-white little structure that was surprisingly clean for the city. Inside the gazebo tonight was one man in a long trenchcoat, escaping the cold rain - nothing uncommon. Behind her, Fabian stumbled along, taking in the sights. The people he saw looked Solecian, if anything, but this was not Solace. The smell was all wrong, the buildings an odd shape - most notable of all was that everyone he saw was distinctly human. No dwarves, no half-orcs, not even any elves as far as he could see. All tamely-dressed humans. They must have still been in Solace… but whatever New York must have been some weird town to have nothing but humans in.

Adaine stepped under the gazebo, and a confounded Fabian followed.

“Alright, Fabian - are you alright?” she asked. Fabian caught the edge of the balcony, still looking weak.

“Yeah, I’m-I’m fine. I mean I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus, but other than that, yes I’m fine.” he said, gesturing wildly, “Now-now where is this, you said this was New York? Where is that, have you been?”

“Um… sort of…” Adaine admitted cautiously, though it felt wrong to do so, “I um… I know a little about this place. Pretty sure it’s an oracle thing, but I never thought it’d come up, so I never really ended up… mentioning it. But I’ve never been here, I  _ certainly  _ don’t know how you’re here.”

“Well how do we get back, why aren’t we with the rest of the bad kids?”

Adaine took out her crystal. “No idea, but I’m not getting any service.”

Fabian answered by doing the same. “Me neither,” he responded. He looked out over the edge of the gazebo - distantly he could hear the sound of honking car horns, and the low hum of a thousand voices all saying different things. In the distance there were lights, bright and colorful, just barely poking through the rain. This must have ben a very magical place, he assumed, but he didn’t recognize it - it wasn’t elven, and it didn’t really look all that Solecian either. “Alright well, we seem to be in uh… a city, of some kind, but like a really… grassy part of it.”

“It’s um… Well, it’s called… Central Park,” Adaine informed him awkwardly. 

“I have… _never_ heard of this place in my life, are we in Solace, what?”  
“Um…” Adaine creased her eyebrows and looked down. “I don’t think so? I guess I technically don’t know but I’ve seen maps of Solace and I’ve never seen this city on it, but I’m not sure.”

“Okay, well, if you’ve never been here how do you know so much about it, like… where there’s gazebos and all that?”

“I’ve just… seen it before!” answered Adaine, that strange hostility coming back to her once again, “Is that so weird that I’ve seen it or read about it, I’m reading about things all the time!”  
“You do read a lot,” admitted Fabian, “Do you think the others are here, too?”  
Adaine shrugged. “I can do locate person?” she offered, “But who should I… who should I do it on, you think?”

“Seacaster?”  
The two of them looked up to the source of the smooth, low voice, seeing the man in the trenchcoat leaning against the railing of the gazebo. He soaking wet, his eyes covered by knitted hat. He was standing perfectly still, pale hands in his pockets, a rugged beard on his face. Fabian creased his eyebrows, hand on the hilt of his sword. A faux smile then came to his face.

“Who’s asking?” he joked coolly. 

In an impossibly fast movement the man had leapt up and latched a pale, bony hand around Fabian’s kneck, shoving him up against a pillar of the gazebo. He managed to get Fandrangur halfway out of its hilt before his hand quivered and went limp, and Adaine watched with horror as the color disappeared from his face and he lost consciousness faster than was possible. Her eyes lit up with white hot light and fire burst from her fingertips, hurling the man to the other side of the gazebo. There, he rolled onto his back and then, startlingly, disappeared into the ground, like a trapped door had opened up underneath him and then immediately closed. Adaine ran over to the piece of ground, but there was nothing but wet, hard wood - no sign of a door, or of anything beneath it.

Fabian slunk down to the ground of the gazebo, his face bloodless. 

“Fabian!” cried Adaine, rushing over to him. She fell to her knees beside him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him slightly. “Fabian!” she exclaimed again, tears coming to her eyes. His head lolled back into the pillar. He looked awful. He was dying.

She whipped out a hand and her tearful eyes glowed as a round hole of white light appeared beneath where the two of them were kneeling, and immediately she fell right through. The dimension door appeared exactly where she wanted it to, a little ways away from the back parking lot of a large, white building. A hospital - one where she knew she could get help. Somewhere in her mind there was a name, though she wasn’t sure exactly how she knew it. Kingston Brown. She didn’t know his face, or anything about him - but something told her, persistently and urgently, that he could help. 

She fell out of the brilliant near-white blue dimension door into a puddle on the pavement, chilling water splashing up into her face and across her glasses. She caught Fabian by the back of the shoulders just before his head could hit the ground. There was almost no one around, one or silhouettes in their cars, but as far as Adaine knew they hadn’t made two much of a stir. She wrapped an arm under his arms, and her muscles quivered as she hoisted him up. Dammit, why couldn’t this have been Gorgug or something. “Come on!” she whispered to herself. She reeled back, then managed to throw herself into a standing position, stumbling forward with Fabian on her shoulder. Through the mist of the rain she dragged him, feet shuffling forward, water seeping into her shoes. There was a door in the back of the hospital, labeled ‘Staff Only’ in all red capital letters. It would have to do regardless. She collapsed against it, managing to open the doorknob underneath her. The door opened up and she nearly fell flat on her face, just barely stopping herself by extending a foot out underneath her. Within was a blinding light compared to the dark of the rain, LEDS in the ceiling casting cold, sterile light. It was a thin hallway, with doors on either side. 

“Please!” she immediately exclaimed, “Someone help me, please!”

Down the hall were two people - one was a nurse in all blue scrubs with black hair bound behind her. The other was a muscular man in a T-shirt, presumably a civilian, with spiked black hair and a sweet, angular face similar to that of the nurse. The nurse had just finished saying something about how “he was nice, but I’m not sure…” before her eyes lit up at the sight of the two drenched teenagers. Immediately the two of them had run down the hallway and taken Fabian.

“He needs to go to Kingston, Kingston Brown, please, that’s very important!”  
“If he needs emergency medical care I can’t make promises as to a specific doctor, can you tell me what’s wrong with him?” the nurse asked professionally. 

“He needs Kingston, please!” answered Adaine hysterically. 

“Emiko, is- _ is  _ Kingston available?” asked the man. 

She gave him a confused look. Her voice softened. “Ricky, I don’t - I don’t know, but we can’t just-”

While the man spoke, his eyes were on Fabian’s pointed ears and perfectly white hair. “Kingston is the most competent doctor in here, you know he gets the… erm… unusual, cases.”

For the first time, then, Emiko noticed what the man did. Her eyes dwindled on Fabian, then moved to Adaine’s face, then her ears. She then nodded to the man and brought a small device to her lips. “Paging Dr. Brown, we’ve got an emergency case headed your way.” Before she was so much as finished with that the large man had rushed several yards down the hall, so quickly that Adaine could hardly keep up. The nurse effortlessly kept pace, and spoke to her seriously.

“What happened here?” she asked.

“Um… he was attacked?” Adaine guessed.

“How, what was the weapon?”

“I don’t know, I-I’m sorry, I don’t know!”  
The man took a sharp left turn into a doctor’s office. Inside was a man in a labcoat with warm brown skin and dreadlocks nearly down to his waist. There was no sign of surprise on his face; all he said was, “Set him down.”

As easily as if he were a child, the man in the shirt laid him down on the medical bed. The doctor - Kingston, she knew - touched his neck, examined his face, and then sternly began barking orders. “His heart rate is almost nonexistent, Ms. Matsui, we’re gonna need a crash cart in here.” She hurried out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Kingston placed a hand on his chest, and a sunset gold light spilled out from between his fingers. One second passed… two… three… “He’s too far gone, we gotta get a heart rate,” said Kingston.

“Wh-what do you mean too far gone, is he dead?!” asked Adaine, “Don’t you have revivify, you can’t just leave him!”

“We’re doing everything we can for him, he’s gonna be just fine,” Kingston assured her, his voice rough, but sure, “Can you tell me what your friend here is?”

“Um, a half-elf?”

“A what?”  
“He’s-”

Before she could answer, Kingston redirected his attention to the grey cart being wheeled in by Emiko, and another two nurses. Rapidly, he directed them, “He’s coding, we need to get a heart rate, now.” 

The three nurses worked as a perfect team, and from the cart they picked up two of what looked like square ironing boards with white handles on the back, shining metal on their surfaces. Less than seconds after one of the nurses cut open Fabian’s shirt Emiko placed one of these devices on the upper left of his chest and the other one on the lower right. “Clear!” she said. There was a sharp, laser-like noise, and Fabian twitched like a dead bug.

“ _Stop it, what are you doing to him!?_ ” shrieked Adaine. She went to rush forward, before she felt the strong arms of the man from before grab her around the midriff and by the shoulders. “ _Don’t any of you know revivify!? You’re hurting him, stop it!_ ”  
Lowly, Kingston said, “You need to get her out of here.” 

“Got it,” said the man. Adaine struggled against the pull of the warm arms behind her as they shouted ‘clear’ and Fabian twitched again. The scene dipped away from her behind a white wall, and through blurry eyes the door shut. Immediately Adaine spun around to face the nurse - but he wasn’t even a nurse. He was in jeans, and a gray t-shirt. 

“What are they doing to him in there?!” she demanded. 

“Hey, now, we’re gonna make sure your friend is safe,” he assured her, “They’re trying to get his heart started back up again. Dr. Brown is the best doctor in New York, so we’re gonna make sure your friend is okay. Can you tell me your name?”

“Adaine O'Shaughnessy,” she answered.

“My name is Ricky,” he responded, “It’s very good to meet you Adaine. We’re gonna make sure you and your friend get out of here safe, but you gotta answer me a few questions, is that ok?”

“I… yes, yes sure,” Adaine said, looking cautiously to the door.

“Okay. Is there some reason you asked for Dr. Brown, specifically?” he asked. 

“I…” began Adaine, and then froze. She supposed, hypothetically, it could have been any doctor in the hospital. But only humans lived in New York - she wasn’t sure why that was, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to challenge that fact. She said the thought that popped up into the back of her mind through a young, childlike voice: “Kingston can help.”  
“That’s true. He _can_ help.” he encouraged firmly. 

Then the door opened, and Adaine spin around. Two of the nurses left, and the third, Emiko, nodded sternly at Ricky that he could go in. She then flashed a smile at Adaine. “You can go in,” she said to both of them, “Kingston says he’s gonna be just fine.”

Adaine let out a long sigh of relief as she stumbled into the room, Ricky just behind her. There was Fabian, still on the table. There was a little more color in his face and he was breathing more steadily now, but his eye was still calmly closed. There was an alien-looking tube in his arm, hooked up to a bag full of clear liquid hanging from a metal stand. Adaine swallowed. Ricky shut the door behind him. 

“How’s Fabian?!” demanded Adaine. 

Kingston smiled warmly, “He’s doing fine. Can you, um… tell me what happened to him?”

“Yeah, this… guy, like grabbed him by the neck and he just passed out and then the guy like, disappeared. I don’t know how he did it, Fabian’s usually like… super strong. I think it was a magical attack of some sort, but I didn’t have time to use detect magic, and there wasn’t a more obvious sign of it, I don’t know what - I didn’t know what happened -”

“Alright - take a breath,” the doctor recommended, “What’s your name?”

“Adaine.”

“Adaine. Your friend is okay. I’m gonna wake him up right now, but if you’re all freaked out when he wakes up, he’s gonna freak out too, and we can’t have that, okay? He’s gonna be waking up in a strange place, I need you to show him he’s not in danger. Can you do that for me?” Adaine nodded, taking in a long breath through her nose and letting it out just as slowly through her lips in an ‘o’ formation, just like Jawbone had taught her to do. The panic in her heart slowly subsided, as did the tightness in her chest. She looked to Fabian - still breathing. “You did a great job, getting your friend here, okay? You saved his life!” said Kingston, and smiled.

Adaine nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and wiped her eyes, “Can you just wake him up, please?”

Kingston nodded. With a sigh, he tried the same spell again, placing his hands over Fabian’s chest and creating a warm, golden glow. This time, however, Fabian let out a startling gasp, eye snapping open. He let out a loud sigh, clearly thoroughly shaken. Adaine took a place by his side. “Fabian!” she exclaimed, “Oh, thank God, you’re okay!”

“Adaine…” he panted with relief. He then turned a hostile expression to Kingston. “Who are you?!” he demanded, “And what - what is -” he noticed the tube in his arm and his eyes went wide as he jolted upward, “Are you pumping me up with something?!” he demanded. 

“Kid, I’m gonna suggest you don’t yank that out,” Kingston advised, gently pushing him downwards. “If you give me a second, I’m gonna take it out safely. It’s just a saline drip to try and get a little of your strength back, but we shouldn’t be needing it now.” 

Fabian winced, still weak, and allowed Kingston to push him down. “I’m kind of getting done with waking up in freaky, unfamiliar places!” he exclaimed irritably, “Adaine, where are we? Still in… New York or whatever it is?” As he said this, Kingston swiftly turned off the drip and pulled the I.V. from his vein. 

“Yeah, we’re still in New York. This is a doctor, his name is Kingston Brown.”

“That’s true,” agreed Kingston, looking over with a pleasant curiosity, “Although I must admit I’m not sure how you know that. Glowing recommendation from a friend, I hope?”  
“I um…” stammered Adaine, “I’m actually not… _exactly_ sure how I knew to come here, but I knew you could help people who weren’t humans. I didn’t want to risk it with another doctor.”

“What do you mean, risk it?” asked Fabian, “Risk-risk what, has no one here seen an elf before?”

Kingston looked at him. “Can I get your full name, Fabian?”

“Fabian Aramais Seacaster, but what does that matter?”

“Well, Mr. Seacaster…” began Kingston, “I’m not sure exactly where you and your friend are from, but uh, we don’t have elves in New York City. Nor do we, as far as I know, have elves in the Unsleeping City, or anywhere in the sixth burrow - Now I’m not completely up to date on my lore, but I do know that I’ve never seen anyone like either of you cross my path before. You mentioned you just… woke up here?”

“Yes, from Solace,” specified Adaine, “Elmville.”  
“‘Fraid I don’t know it,” answered Kingston.

“You don’t know Solace?” asked Fabian, his voice slightly softened with fear. “What do you mean you don’t know Solace, it’s a-a-a world power, it’s enormous.”

“And what world would that be?” asked Kingston calmly.

“Um, Spire?”

Ricky spoke up from the back corner of the office, reminding the rest of the room that he was still there. “Wait, so okay… so you guys are… not from… Earth?” he put together slowly. “Did you guys like… crash land?”

Kingston chuckled. “Ricky, I’m… I’m fairly sure they’re not aliens, I’m sure they didn’t-”

“Earth?” asked Fabian, “Where the hell is that?”  
Kingston and Ricky both froze, their eyes locking on Fabian.

“Well, Ricky,” Kingston said lowly, “I guess I owe you an apology - seems like they may… very well… have crash landed.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fig and Gorgug find themselves backstage, but what stage they're in the back of remains a mystery. They are aided by an extravagant young Broadway star, who makes sure things don't get out of hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good night, my dear princes, princesses, and delightful nobles. i ACTUALLY cant believe this fic's response you guys, you are blowing my mind rn........ I've never gotten this many comments so fast!! I don't wanna push my luck but..... yall think we can get it to 20?? who knows! either way, i am flattered. enjoy the new chap! i keep telling myself i gotta stop the daily updates bc im gonna run out of wiggle room but. ah well. tis still room for wiggling, friends!

“ _Quiet backstage!”_ _  
_ Fig awoke in a dark place to the sound of the hushed whisper. There were distant voices somewhere out behind her, and she was in a cramped space, a warm, wood floor underneath her. Behind her was a wall, and pressing her against it was the back of a rough, cotton sofa. She blinked awake. She felt like she’d been crushed by a falling piano, shaking as she tried to see through the darkness.

She sat up - she seemed to be in some sort of warehouse, with pieces of furniture packed far too close together for it to be anything else. There were couches upon chairs upon bedside tables. To balance it out there were larger features too - great flats or triangular prisms taller than a person, areas sectioned off by curtain, racks covered in costume. She was deep behind it all, luminescent tape lighting up the ground below her. Above and between the furniture were shuffling figured dressed all in black, just hardly muttering to themselves. After taking a moment to look at it objectively, she knew exactly where she was, because a place like this didn’t change no matter where in the world it was - she was backstage. 

Uncomfortably, she sat up, hands rushing to her midriff. Good lord… could she even stand? She felt a weight behind her, remaining on the ground. At least she still had her base,  _ if  _ she could lift it. She laid back down again, and then sat up faster, using the emphasis to get all the way up to her knees. She groaned slightly. One of the figures in black shushed another. 

From somewhere in the distance a loud, extravagant woman’s voice had switched from speech to song, an orchestra kicking up around her and seeping muffled into this blackened space. “Let’s not pretend that you don’t know _exactly_ what I’m talking about,” she spoke, and then sang, “ _Old friend of mine!”_ _  
_ Looking through the piles of furniture, Fig could see a body stretched out unconscious behind a couple of flats on wheels, curled up on its side. She couldn’t make out colors well from this distance or in the dark, but she could see a mass of medium length, dark hair spilled out on the floor, and very large proportions, a larger being than a human. She could make out a baggy shirt… no, a hoodie. She let herself fall to her hands and knees and crawled through the space between the wall and the couch, under a long, dinner table, and just barely between two chairs very close to pressed together. She was almost knocked over when someone took a chair from just beside where she was crawling, stumbling back. The distracted stagehand, however, whipped around just as quickly as they took it and was headed out. Fig carried on, taking shelter behind the large section of flats folded like layers of pastry, to the figure, partway towards the back of the room. When she was over to them, she turned them over. Green skin, a sweet face, shaggy black hair. Yes - she was right.

“Gorgug,” she whispered, shaking him, “Gorgug!”  
Gorgug took in a long breath and mumbled, his face creasing up in discomfort.

“Gorgug, it’s me, wake up!”

“Mm…” he complained softly, before blinking his eyes open. “Fig?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me!” she answered, “I don’t know where we are!” 

He creased his eyebrows, before, with an equally uncomfortable groan, he sat up far enough to prop himself up with his elbow. He rolled his shoulders back, wincing as he cracked them both. “Oh no…” he said softly to himself, “Did we… party too hard and pass out backstage?”

“Maybe…” answered Fig, “But listen! This isn’t our show! I mean, do we have any openers that sing about… shoe making?”  
Sure enough, out onstage, the bold soprano was carrying on rigorously, “ _This is the business for you, my friend, this is the business of shoes, my friend, what else could you possibly do, old friend, without the help of somebody like me?_ ”

Gorgug creased his eyebrows and listened. “I don’t think so,” he answered, “Also I feel like it’d be hard to put on our show without us.”

“I mean, we have understudies,” Fig claimed flippantly.

“ _ We  _ have understudies?” Gorgug asked, “Aren’t we a really famous band?”

“Keep it down back there, please,” a sharp voice said, coming from somewhere beyond the sea of furniture. 

“Well - what do we do, do we make ourselves known?” asked Gorgug, now in a whisper, “I don’t really feel like… we’re supposed to be here.”

“It’s alright, I can handle it. You stay here, I’ll, you know, I’ll figure things out.”

“What - just - stay here?”

“Umm….” Fig looked around at the people wandering back and forth. She squinted. There didn’t seem to be anyone as big as Gorgug around - in fact, they all looked really very similar. They seemed to be along the color spectrum of the warm-color races, pinks and browns, yet she saw no one that could have been dwarf or gnome height (unless perhaps they were very, very tall). They must have been elves, and humans only. Not a good mix for Gorgug to startle. 

“I think maybe for now. I can figure out what’s going on, if you get ready to move on the signal.”

“Ok. What’s the signal?”  
“You’ll know it when you’ll see it,” Fig assured him. She then transformed herself into a very similar looking human, only now she had no horns and was wearing a black t-shirt and black dress pants. She took off her base and left it just next to Gorgug, and then stood up and stepped out of the rows of furniture. 

Just as she did, the song came to a swelling end outside, and everyone rushed into synchronized motion. Gorgug was forced to scramble away as flats peeled off from in front of him like a tornado had taken them, chairs and tables being whisked away. Gorgug whispered a good luck wish to Fig before scrambling back. As quickly as she could, Fig grabbed the first chair she saw and followed the crowd. Immediately, she was bumping into people around her, a source of irritation for everyone in black. A short woman in an extravagant yellow pinstriped suit brushed past her, followed closely by a taller, dark haired man in a similar, pastel blue outfit. Soon she was spinning like a revolving door. She caught a glimpse at an empty theater before a woman grabbed her upper arm, nearly knocking the chair from her hands, and pulled her backstage. The river of people in and out continued to flow around her, the great, thick wall of flats getting thinner and thinner.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” the woman snapped. She was an older woman, with short blonde hair. She still had not released her arm. “That chair doesn’t go out ‘til scene six! You were out there looking like an idiot! This show goes up in three days, and you’re still making mistakes like these?!”

“Um… well…” Fig stammered, “I’m really sorry I just… I’m having a really off day. My cat died yesterday, so…” She faked a welling of tears in her eyes, and then sniffed, “I’m really sorry, I’ll do better, I promise.”

The woman softened, then squinted. “I’m sorry, what was your name? I don’t think I recognize y-”

Her voice was cut off by the sound of a scream so high-pitched it shook the rafters. Everyone’s heads spun to the noise in the far back of backstage, where a short woman with curly brown hair and a black T-shirt was in the middle of stumbling back, a terrified shriek leaving a scrunched up young face. Of course, as soon as they saw her, they looked to the source of her terror, to find a seven and a half foot, hulking, green, fanged, hunched-over, black-eyed creature in a hoodie with an axe the size of a canoe slung over its back. Strangely enough, it still looked to be about fifteen, in a drawstring hoodie, meekly waving to the attentive crowd.

Soon the fear spread like a gas through the group of actors and techies. Some shrieked, some ran immediately away. Most of their responses were more muted, however, whispering to each other, trying to remember a character in the show who was meant to look like that, stumbling back, their jaws all dropping. The only one of them who reacted with anything that was truly unique was the small woman in the yellow pinstriped suit, her face covered in stage makeup. “My goodness!” she exclaimed, “My dear, erm, Kyle, wasn’t it?” she asked. 

Gorgug swallowed, and looked to Fig, who widened her eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, I am, I’m-I’m Kyle.”

“Of course, dear, you took us all by surprise! Well, surely you know that _Nightmare At The Junior Dance_ doesn’t go up for a week? Might I say, your costume is fantastic, but you’re a bit confused, friend. I think you meant to come back here next week!”  
Already, the crowd began to calm, smiling back at one another, the easily startled being summoned back to the stage and chuckled at for their superstitions. 

Gorgug visibly calmed, and then forced a laugh. “Um… sorry, yeah, I must have gotten confused,” he said, a little too loud.

Fig then spoke up, “Oh!” she said, and hit herself in the forehead, “That must have been why I was moving the wrong chair! Me and Kyle just came in the whole wrong day! Kyle, didn’t I tell you to put this in your calendar?”

“H-what? Oh! Yeah, you said that but I… forgot to… do that,” Gorgug struggled. “Sorry, um… Isa… beth.”  
The woman who had previously been holding Fig’s arm cast her an irritated look, then stepped back, and made a circular move around her head. “Alright, everybody, let’s just go ahead and take fifteen!”  
There was an unenthusiastic chorus of “Thank you, fifteen,” throughout the crowd as they arranged in pockets of hushed conversation. Some wandered to the greenroom, or out into the auditorium, but many of them stayed in the room, their eyes still on a nervous Gorgug. In that time, Fig rushed over to him.

“Isabeth?!” she hissed.

“It was the first thing that came to my head!” Gorgug defended himself. After a moment the woman in the suit was stepping up to them. She was a beautiful young woman, with soft pink lipstick and short-cut brown hair. She was about half the size of Gorgug, and yet, not remotely intimidated, she beckoned the both of them with a wave of her finger.

“You two, if you wouldn’t mind a word,” she said. Gorgug and Fig exchanged looks, yet had no choice but to follow. 

She lead them out of the backstage area into the light, down a steep staircase to the side of the stage, and to a room filled with mirrors, sofas, and chairs labeled Rowan Berry in black print on the door. The room smelled like hairspray and paint, and was filled with wigs and neatly organized extravagant costumes. The woman - presumably Rowan - shut and locked the door behind her. 

“Alright - both of you - fess up,” she said sharply. 

They looked at each other again, cluelessly.

“Why are you outside the umbral arcana?” she specified, “And what on Earth are you doing wandering around, what are you?”

“Um…” Gorgug spoke up, and waved meekly, “Hi. I’m Gorgug. I didn’t mean to um… sorta, scare your whole cast and the moving guys.”

“The moving guys, what moving guys?”

“You know, the guys moving stuff.”

“You mean the pibs?”

“Uh… yes,” Gorgug answered with a nod, though he wasn’t rightfully sure what a ‘pib’ was. 

“Well, I’m just glad I was there…” said Rowan, her eyebrows raised. She turned to Fig. “And you, are you his friend? Did you two come here in… cahoots, or what?”

“Yes, this is my… adoptive brother, Gorgug. I’m, um, Isabeth. Short for Elizabeth. But you can call me Liz, if you want.” She extended a hand for a shake, which Rowan pointedly ignored. 

“Well,” she said, jutting out a hip, “I don’t mean to be inhospitable to my guests from the sixth burrow, but I’m afraid I’ll have to make a call to your superior. Where are you from, Gorgug, Hell?”

Gorgug shuffled insecurely. “Um… no.”

“Well, you don’t look much like an angel to me.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know he looks a lot like an angel!” defended Fig, “And honestly? I think you saying he’s from Hell is pretty racist!”

“It might well be, my dear, but what I’d love to know is what exactly I’m being racist  _ against,”  _ said Rowan, unfazed. “Normally I wouldn’t be so crass, but, well, you were the ones on my set.” She grinned. 

“Well, Isabeth is human, I’m pretty sure,” Gorgug said, “And I’m a half-orc.”

“Sorry - you’re… where are you  _ from,  _ though? You’re not fae.”

“Um, Spire?” answered Gorgug, “We don’t really know how we got here or where we are, or where this place… is.”

Fig folded a piece of hair behind her ear. “My brother’s right,” she said, “And I actually am from Hell, surprise!” she said, and as she threw her arms up, her form returned to that of her true self, punk rock spikes and netting covering her body and massive reddish horns poking out from her head. 

Rowan took this sight in for a moment, giving her a somewhat unimpressed once-over “And what exactly are the devils doing on Earth?” asked Rowan.

“So far, I think we’re pretty much just terrorizing the locals,” admitted Fig with a shrug, and Gorgug nodded in agreement. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kristen wanders her way into a local cafe and gets some help from a man in a cowboy hat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats up guys, girls, and gokus!!! big shoutout to the person who let me know that the word is spelled 'borough' and not 'burrow' when it comes to new york. im from connecticut myself, and simply did not know, but it shall be the correct spelling for the rest of the chapters. this is how we learn!! as always, enjoy the fic gang! a short chapter today, but expect things to pick up after this!!

Kristen awoke in the cold, too. But she wasn’t afraid.

She rose uncomfortably from the gutter, water soaking through her blue, black and white tie-dye shirt, running in a trail from her red ponytail. There was a sharp pain in her core, a shaky soreness in her limbs. Beside her, warping from the water and the cold, was her stick. The rain came down in sheets, and she soon came to find she was in a busy street, going completely ignored. 

She looked around. A city - one like she’d never seen. Despite the rain the streets and the sidewalks remained packed, all the lights cutting through the mist like lasers in pinks and blues and neon greens. Above her, the sky was clouded the black-ish grey of night, and rows of cars were honking their horns and slowly shuffling by. People wrapped to the neck in coats and scarves braced the rain at staggering speeds, paying her absolutely no mind. She rose to her feet, feeling the water in her socks squish down and release through the bottoms of her sneakers. A chill ran down her spine. Where were her friends? Where was anyone? Where had she been before this? Only the last question had an answer she could find, and that was in a dizzying part of her mind where she could recall being up on her crystal late at night, Tracker on her own crystal in the same bed beside her. She had been mindlessly scrolling social media, her girlfriend doing the same, feeling too lazy for both sex and conversation that night. After that, she must have fell asleep and woke up here. The place, while filled with neon lights, had an underlying, drab tone to it - no magic, and seemingly nothing but humans. It was a beautiful city, and very odd. For that reason, she liked it very quickly.

But how to find her friends? Well, first she’d have to get out of the rain - she’d get frostbite at this rate. With nothing left to do, she joined into the street traffic, walking along like she were just ‘one of the regulars’. The first place she saw was a cafe by the name of Ganza’s, a cute, Italian looking place with wilting yellow flowers on the outside. Inside was a warm orange light, a few tables, and a counter with baked goods behind a pane of glass, all of which she could see through the glass exterior. It felt like night time - what this place was doing open, she had no idea. Nevertheless, she stepped inside. She stumbled weakly to the first table she saw, and sat down, taking out her crystal. No service. Damn. 

She took a few minutes to lean over her phone, water dripping down from her hair to open her GPS. It loaded for a moment, before the arrow that represented her appeared in a field of featureless green. That wasn’t a great sign. 

“Hey, um, I’m sorry, but you gotta order something if you wanna stay in here much longer, pal,” said the person behind the counter, an older, balding man in a floury apron. 

Kristen looked up like a deer in headlights. She looked at the sweets, then used the table to prop herself up and walk over to the counter. “Um… I guess I’ll just get a… croissant, how much is that?”

“Buck fifty.”

She blinked. “Um…” she said.

“A… a dollar and fifty cents, pal,” the man specified cautiously.

“Dollar…” Kristen muttered to herself, “I’m sorry, I don’t… know what that is, I can give you a couple… silver…”

“I’m sorry?”

Kristen reached into her pocket and placed a few silver coins on the counter. The man creased his eyebrows, then scoffed, smiling cautiously. “What, did you come from the Renn Faire or something?” he asked, “Listen, I don’t know if this is like a social experiment or what, but unless you’re gonna order at least a coffee, I’m gonna have to ask you to head back home.”

“Um… I can take care of it, if you want.” Kristen turned around to see someone sitting at one of the tables. He was an odd figure, wearing a cowboy hat with rainwater still dripping from the brim. His frame was thin, and he wore a sky blue button down that was totally open, his pale chest exposed, as well as the two scars across his chest. He wore a pair of jeans, and beat-up, rain-greyed sneakers. His face was somewhat gaunt, and stretched, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a bit too long. Without invitation, he stood up, and placed a green piece of paper on the counter. “Just a croissant and a coffee, if I could?” he said. 

“You got it,” the man said. A second later, on the counter was a tall white cup, a croissant on a piece of paper, and a few more pieces of green paper and coins. The man took the coffee, then the currency. Cautiously, Kristen took the croissant.

“Um… thanks?” she told him.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, hey um… what exactly  _ are  _ those?” He nodded to the silver on the counter.

“Just a couple pieces of silver,” said Kristen as if it were obvious, “What’s the deal with the green… paper?”  
“That’s money,” answered the man, “You wanna take a seat?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them headed over to the table the man was sitting at before, Kristen setting down her croissant and beginning to pull it apart. Quickly she picked up on the fact that the man was giving her a look like she had something between her teeth.

“What?” asked Kristen, “Is there a stain on my shirt or something?”

“Uhh, no, it’s nothing,” answered the man, and looked sharply down, the brim of his hat shading his face, “I’m Pete, by the way.”

“Kristen!” Kristen introduced herself, “Yeah, I actually just got here, so…”

“Oh!”  
“Yeah like I just got here, like I just… showed up here,” she admitted, her eyes going slightly wide, “So I was kind of wondering what this place was or… like, where I am, I guess.”

“Oh,” Pete repeated, with a little more understanding, “Oh, no yeah, you did just get here, didn’t you. You’re from the sixth borough ?”

Kristen remained silent. 

“Or no- or not,” Pete corrected. Looking cautious, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white pill, popping it in his mouth. Kristen reeled, eyes going wide.

“Wow…” she chuckled.

“Oh no, it’s actually a tic-tac,” Pete clarified, “Sometimes when you’re younger you like, do a lot of drugs and get used to popping pills and then a really… cool doctor guy tells you to get clean, but you’re so used to the pill-shape that you eat just like, a _lot_ of tic-tacs. Like a box a day. You want one?”  
“Okay!” Kristen laughed. Pete handed her a small white capsule, and she popped it in her mouth. She swirled the minty flavor around her mouth - it mixed very unpleasantly with the croissant. “Thanks!” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, totally, so like…” Pete went on persistently, “Could I maybe get a clue as to where you’re from, or…”

“Yeah, um, not here! I just woke up in a gutter and like that’s pretty crazy!” Kristen laughed, “I’m from uh, Solace, are we still in… Solace…?”

“Yeah, no, I definitely don’t know where that is,” admitted Pete, “You’re in New York City now, so! Sucks that you were just like… zapped here, or woke up here.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, did you have any… plans for the rest of the night?”

“Well, I was just brought here against my will, so no,” Kristen answered frankly.

“Yeah, right. I was wondering if you’d come with me to a group of people who might be able to help you out? I know I’m like a crazy guy in a cowboy hat so that probably doesn’t sound like a good idea, and if it like… freaks you out.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” assured Kristen, “I mean… good point? For most people? But like, I’m good. Yeah! I’d love to. You seem pretty cool, so. Where is this place, where are we… headed?”

“It’s called the Gramercy Occult Society,” Pete said, “They should be able to help you out.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riz is brought to the Gramercy Occult Society and is introduced to its leader. She convinces him to return with her and have a discussion about where he came from, and then shows him a map of what is supposedly the entire world - Riz doesn't recognize an inch of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good day, witches, wizards, and warlocks!! it occurs to me i forgot to post yesterday but ah well. i was playing dnd and it got wild gang!!! games gotta come first, im sure all you dnd fans understand that!! anyway, heres another funky little chapter with ya boi Riz............ and thank you again for the incredible support! yall are leaving me here Thriving.

Sofia landed heavily on the steps of the gramercy occult society, nearly cracking the stone beneath her as she came down from nearly a hundred feet above her. Despite her incredible feat of acrobatics, she didn’t so much as break a heel, politely setting Riz down like a toddler as soon as she was steady on her own two legs. 

Riz’s head was spinning, the world turning in dizzying circles underneath his legs. As soon as he was on his own two feet he swore to himself, barely managing to catch himself on one of the stairs so he didn’t crack his head open on the steps. His voice was coarse from screaming, despite the fact that he didn’t remember hearing himself make a sound at all. Despite the fact that he had done nothing, his muscles were killing him like he had been the one to jump from building to building. He had to press his teeth together not to throw up. 

But he didn’t have time to collect himself that well - he took a breath, let it out, and then drew his gun, rising wobbly to his feet again. His aim fluctuated, barrel swaying to the left of the woman, then the right. Baring his pointed teeth, he steadied himself, and with a raspy voice he spat through his teeth, “Who are you, and where the Hell are my friends?!”

“Um… I actually don’t even know your friends?” she said politely, flashing a set of manicured pink nails. She adjusted her cheetah-pink skirt to fall tight around her thighs, and then a bit too openly fixed her breasts’ position in her bra. “And I really am so sorry to startle you, little guy, I understand that can be jarring but we just kind of needed to get you out of the public eye. You understand.”

“I understand, what the fuck do you mean ‘I understand’?! I don’t understand anything, you and that huge rat just picked me off the street and kidnapped me!”  
“Okay - I know it may seem like that! But I have some friends who are like, _really_ into magic, and I think they’re probably gonna be your best shot,” continued Sofia. She sharply pointed a finger, “And I don’t wanna be grim or anything but honestly getting swung around from building to building is honestly not the worst a little kid on his own has to worry about in New York.”  
Riz scowled incredulously. “I’m fifteen!” he said. 

“Oh!” Sofia said awkwardly, “And a… strapping teenage boy you are… as well, right. Sorry, it’s just… the height was throwing me. Not that there’s anything wrong with being the little guy! I’m barely five foot three without the heels,” - she laughed self-indulgently at her own joke - “You know?”

“Yeah, we…” too perplexed to consider her a threat much longer, Riz lowered his gun, pointedly ignoring her ‘joke’, “We’re goblins, we’re kinda shorter as like, probably the most notable thing about us aside from the greenness and the ears and eyes and whatever. You’ve seriously never even… heard of one before?”

“Well… no. But honestly what’s weird is that Kug hasn’t heard of it. Cause I only got involved with all this magic shit like, a couple months ago so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if goblins were like super common and I’ve just never heard of them.” She explained.

“They  _ are  _ super common, they’re like the second most populous race in Spire, just behind humans!”

“Excuse me?!”  
From the newly opened doors of the Gramercy Occult Society stepped a stylish young figure - she was a lean woman in her early twenties. She had warm brown skin and sharp, dark eyes, with a coif of curled black hair flipped over a stylish undershave haircut. She was dressed in all manner of bangles and rings and wizard-like paraphernalia, yet it did nothing to pull away from her sense of youthful style. She wore grey band T-shirt, a slim fitting faux-leather jacket, skinny-jeans and high tops. Her hands were covered in bracelets and rings, several different length-necklaces hanging from her neck and chimes and watches hanging from her belt. Her eyes were winged subtly with black liner, her lips painted a dark clay reddish-brown. She was looking between Riz and Sofia with a stern ferocity, a tightness in her jaw. “Sofia, what in God’s name is this?! What is he doing outside the umbral arcana, why does he have a gun?! Are we - are we being attacked.”

“Oh, no, I just spooked him a little, is all!” Sofia said, bending at the hip and gesturing with curled-up fingers, as she tended to. “So, Kug and I were going out for drinks - by which I mean we were gonna play this new bit we got that’s called - get this -  _ loose racoon _ \- where I like, cut myself on something and I go in saying I just got bit by a raccoon, right, then Kug comes in-”

The woman placed her fingers on the bridge of her nose, exasperated. “Sofie, skip to the end, please.”  
“We found this green kid in the gutter and we took him back here because we didn’t know what else to do with him,” Sofia explained curtly. 

From behind them came what sounded like a hyperventilating squeaky toy. There, heaving his way up the stairs, was Kugrash, who looked absolutely exhausted. “Alright,” he said. Riz winced with disgust as something clearly caught in his throat, and without a second thought he spat it onto the concrete. “Sophie you go too… you go too fuckin’ fast… ugh, what’d I miss?”

“We were just getting your ‘friend’ here inside,” said Esther. 

“Right - awesome - lead the way. Aw, christ, I’m not the rat I used to be…” 

For the first time since the hubbub started, Riz threw up his hands and spoke. “Actually, I’m gonna go find my friends,” he said firmly, “If I have to turn this fucking city upside down, I’m gonna find my friends! And I’m certainly not sitting around in some library for everyone to ogle at me!” Showing them all a cold soldier, he turned around to head down the stairs. 

“Kid!” Esther objected, and held out a hand, “Wait, just - just wait a second…” when it was made clear that Riz had no intention of stopping, she chased him down the staircase, easily keeping on par with him, “I am so sorry, I have been so unreasonable. What’s your name?” Riz didn’t answer. Esther sighed, lowering her voice. “Listen I… I know that… Sofie and Kug don’t necessarily have the best people skills but I can tell that you are clearly from a place where your species is common, but what you need to understand is that here you are not, and unless you’re a whole lot stronger than you look, you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. People are not gonna know what you are, and when people are confused, they get irrational, and then they get scared. I understand you wanna see your friends, but this city is miles from end to end, and you’re not gonna find them by asking around, not before someone starts to wonder what you are. Now I can’t promise I can get you your friends, but I can promise you answers so please, just… come into the Gramercy Occult Society. I promise we’ll treat you with the utmost respect.”

Just a few steps from the street and already catching looks, Riz stopped. He sighed, his head hitting his chest. “My… my name is Riz,” he told her, “Riz Gukgak.”

Esther nodded. “Riz,” she repeated, “I’m Esther.” She held out her hand. Firmly, Riz shook it. “It’s very nice to meet you. Would you like to join me inside?”  
Gritting his teeth, Riz nodded, and accompanied her back up the stairs. As they got to the top of the stairs Esther shot Sofie and Kug an irritated look before nodding to them to join her inside, where they quickly looked to each other and followed.

Inside was a rich, beautiful, and clearly arcane library. The ceiling was painted like the night sky, but a rich night sky, with circular galaxies and thousands of stars of a thousand colors, realistic or strange. Meteors and shapes of planets covered the sky, as well as great mathematical-looking circles and shapes to balance it out, strange, pale arcane runes dappling the night sky. Below were rows and rows of books, shelves built against each other like a maze, getting darker as the library went on. But great, classical windows were letting in the daylight, creating a brilliant contrast to the dim blues and purples painted on the ceiling. Esther lead them through the bookshelves to a smaller corner of the room, a place that seemed to be for meetings, with a number of chairs gathered around in a circle. They were lovely too, with great wooden frames and matching violet padding. Esther gestured to the chairs. Kugrash and Sofie sat just next to each other, Kug scurrying completely on top of it while Sofie crossed her legs, already leaning over in preparation to gossip. Riz sat two seats away from Sofie, holstering his gun and pulling up his legs and crossing them between the too-wide armrests. Esther remained standing.

“Well,” she said, with a courteous smile, “Mr. Gukgak. Can I call you Riz?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said impatiently.

“So, Riz, if you wouldn’t mind telling me where it is you’re from and how it is you got here?” she asked, and sat down in the chair directly across from him.

Riz sighed. “I’m from Elmville, in Solace. And I don’t know how I got here. I-I was asleep and then I was… here! Soaking wet and… saved by a rat! Which… has yet to be explained to me that everyone would flip their shit about a goblin but this like, really big rat is just perfectly normal.”

“Ooh, I know enough to answer that one!” Sofie said excitedly, “Kug is protected by the  _ umbral arcana,  _ right, which is like, Latin word roots, like, the magic umbrella on the city, so  _ humans  _ see him as… not a rat. You aren’t in that though, you’re just out in the open, which is bad cause people aren’t supposed to know about magic. Unless they’re really cool, you know, like me, right Kug?”

“Hell yeah!” agreed the rat, and offered her a filthy rat-paw high-fave. With a grin, she took it. 

“However… basic that explanation, Sofie is right,” agreed Esther, “There is a force that protects the citizens of New York from the world of magic, or the land of Nod, which bleeds in more here than it does in other parts of the world. People whose appearances are distinctly nonhuman like that of Kugrash here - and, of course, yours - are typically under the umbral arcana. That said - because you don’t seem to be from the land of Nod or from the Unsleeping City, I’m not certain exactly where you stand. What did you say you were?”  
“A goblin,” Riz said, now growing more impatient with repeating himself. 

“You said you were from Solace?”  
“Yes, I am.”

“And where is that?”

Riz half-laughed. “What do you mean, where’s - Okay, maybe it would be more helpful if you told me where I was now.”

Esther nodded. “You’re in New York City, New York State, in the United States of America. Continent of North America… really hoping some of this is ringing a bell.”

Riz blinked, fear mounting in his mind. “Could I get a map?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

With a swift mage hand, Esther pulled a book off of the shelf and opened it up to one of the first pages, revealing a reasonably new map of the world, setting it gently down in Riz’s lap. He thanked her briefly, and then looked over the map. It didn’t take long for alarm to set in - it didn’t take his investigation skills to know that this was wrong. It was  _ all  _ wrong. He couldn’t recognize a single name, a single crease of shoreline, a single border. Even the edges were wrong - the shape of the map would lead one to understand that this world was some spherical shape. This couldn’t be right - this had to be a dream. “Yeah, I don’t know how to explain this but  _ this,”  _ he placed a hand down on the open page, “Is not where I’m from. I’m not…” he laughed incredulously, yellow eyes going slightly wide, “I’m not  _ from  _ here.”

Esther blinked. “Um… okay… Well, that’s our whole planet. You’re not from Hell, are you?”

“No.”

“Heaven?”  
“No, not - there either,” Riz answered, “I’m not from any of here, I-I don’t know any of this. Not any of it.” He took another look at the map, a tense feeling building in the base of his gut. Looking at these strange continents, he felt shaky, like bungee jumping without being attached to a cord. No friends, no landmarks, no clues, no signs. No jumping off points. No _leads._ He just needed _something._ But there was nothing, nothing he knew… logic had abandoned, and he was helpless. He swallowed, recognizing once again how cold and wet he was, how frightening these strangers were. Just a few moments ago he’d vehemently defended his near-adult age, but curled up in this oversized chair he felt very much like a frightened child. He wanted his bed, he wanted his friends. He wanted his mom. 

It was clear that everyone in the room could pick up on Riz’s building anxiety. Sofie was openly wincing, casting a sorrowful look to Kug as she muttered “poor little guy” under her breath, and Kugrash’s snout wrinkled up in sympathy too. Esther creased her eyebrows, unsure of exactly what to say. But before she had to fill the silence, her phone began to ring. She pulled it out of her pocket. Ricky. “What’s up?” she asked, and put the phone to her ear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three of the six bad kids find each other in the city. Gorgug and Fig ride in a limousine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ho kermits, ms piggys, and other wonderful muppets!! it has been made clear to me that i am posting these at a rate that is in fact Very Fast and that i Should Not Feel Bad. this is good news!! honestly i post more than i read on here so really the appropriate rate at which to post updates kind of escapes me, but if thats the case they may come a little slower. this fic is giving me a rough time!! if i take a break from it chances are i'll tide y'all over with some other fantasy high one shots based on loose concepts im a big fan of, i can never get enough of those. enjoy my lovelies, leave a comment if you liked!!!

Far off in a white room, Fabian was now sitting upright with his fingers wrapped around the side edge of a hospital bed, Adaine sitting on a small blue stool just off to the side. Kingston was still looking over the two teenagers, performing any minor examinations they would allow. Adaine was more trusting than Fabian, who wanted to be healed and then left alone, and because of it Adaine was in the middle of sitting uncomfortably while Kingston held a light in front of her eye and looked in. Ricky was in the opposite corner, phone still ringing in his hand. He heard the answer and smiled stupidly.

“Um, hi Esther,” he said, “Do you have a second?”  
“ _Uh… not really, actually, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Is it important?_ ” Esther’s voice answered. 

“Uh, it’s not really… super important. I mean yes - yes it is important, but you know, it can wait, how are you?”  
Kingston scowled. “Will you give me the phone?!” he said irritably, putting away the medical device and leaving Adaine wide-eyed and blinking. He held out his hand for Ricky’s phone.

“Uh, I’m actually here with Kingston, he wants to talk to you.”

“ _ You’re with Kingston?”  _ Esther asked.

“Yeah, I was just helping him out with this thing in the hospital. I don’t work here I just, you know… It’s important to do your share for your community, be that in the firefighting service or in the medical service-”

“Give me that!” complained Kingston, and tactfully took his phone from his hand. “Esther, how are you? Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve gotten involved in a bit of, um… a bit of a situation.”

“Are you in danger? _ ”  _ asked Esther. Back in the Gramercy Occult Society, she raised a ‘hold on a minute’ hand up to Riz, who was creasing his eyebrows. 

“No, no danger,” answered Kingston, “I just wanted to call upon your arcane knowledge for a moment. Have you ever heard of elves? Not the Christmas kind, the real, you know, Tolkein-looking, pointed ears, little taller than average…”  
“ _Outside of fiction? No - no I’m fairly sure those are made up.”_

“Well,” elaborated Kingston, casting a glance at the two teens, “You may want to check again because I’m sitting with two of ‘em right now. An elf and a ‘half-elf’ actually, I’m presuming the other half is human?” Fabian nodded, and Kingston nodded back, “Yes, half human. They’re saying they’re from a place called, um, Solace. I checked ‘em out, Esther, and I don’t know if they’re elves cause I don’t know what an elf looks like, but I can tell you they’re not exactly human. What they’re saying checks out.”  
“Solace?” asked Esther. Riz’s ears perked up.

“Yeah. Why, do you know it?”  
“ _Matter of fact, Kingston, I just so happen to be sitting with a goblin who says he’s from Solace._ ”

Kingston creased his eyebrows. “A goblin?”  
Adaine and Fabian exchanged an eager look.

“ _ Yeah. Says he’s looking for his friends. Do you know the names of these people? _ ”

“Fabian and Adaine.”  
Esther took the phone away from her ear for a moment and looked at the eager Riz. “Do you know a Fabian or Adaine?” she asked. 

Riz’s eyes went wide. “Y-yes, yes that’s them, can you put them on speaker?!”

“He knows them, I’m putting him on speaker. Kid’s name is Riz, says he’s fifteen years old,” she said sharply into the phone and then put it on speaker. 

Kingston pulled his phone from his ear, and put it on speaker. Immediately, the sound of an excited and nasally, but largely familiar voice filled the room. 

“ _Fabian, Adaine, are you guys ok?!_ ”  
For the first time since arriving in New York, Adaine and Fabian grinned

“Riz!” Fabian exclaimed with a thrilled laugh.

“Riz, are you alright?!” followed up Adaine.

“ _ Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, are you guys ok?”  _

“Um…” Adaine said, and looked to Fabian, “I’m fine, Fabian might have… died a little bit.”  
“ _He died?! What happened?!_ ”

Fabian spoke up, gesturing passionately. “Yeah, there was this guy and he like put his hand on my throat, and he must have like, cast some crazy spell, cause I just went  _ down,  _ like just,  _ bam,  _ like that,  _ done.  _ Honestly, dying fucking sucks, it was terrifying, I felt like I was like, disappearing into nothingness and then when I came to I was being like, electrocuted over and over in this white room, it was insane, I…  _ hated  _ it.”

“ _Yeah man, dying honestly blows,_ ” agreed Riz, “ _Are you with Kristen, did she revivify you?_ ”  
“No, I found this doctor, he used like human magic, or human non-magic,” answered Adaine, “I’m still not entirely sure how it works, he used these things called… de… defeb- what were they called?”  
“Defibrillators,” answered Kingston, “Hi, Riz. Kingston Brown, just helped out your friend Fabian.”

“ _ Cool to meet you Kingston, thanks a lot for that. Really awesome! _ ” said Riz, “ _ Have you guys seen the others? _ ”

“Not yet,” answered Adaine.

“Do you wanna maybe… bring them over?” asked Ricky cautiously.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” answered Kingston, “Esther, got room for a few more teens of… mysterious origin?”

“I’d love it if you brought them over, thank you Kingston.”

“Anytime,” he said, and hung up the phone. 

After she was allowed to fetch her base from offstage, Fig - or as we should perhaps call her, ‘Isabeth’, as well as Gorgug had been stuffed into the back of a stylish black limousine with tinted black windows. Inside there were seats facing each other, as well as, of course, the seat of the chauffeur, who Rowan instructed to drive and recommended they not ask any questions. Of course, Fig and Gorgug were not startstruck by the sight of the slick gray leather and the bottle of champagne cooling underneath the seats - they’d been in limousines before. Of course, theirs usually contained quite a lot more requested candy, as well as stylish punk spikes and skulls to keep up the brand of the band. 

“Where are you taking us?” asked Fig, crossing her arms.

“Just a little place I know. Beautiful decor, you’re going to love it!” she said excitedly, “Chauffeur, the Library, please. You know the one.”

Without a word, the car began to move. 

“You’re taking us to a library?” asked Gorgug, sounding unimpressed, “I kinda feel like if no one’s ever seen any of us there’s not gonna be any books about us.”

“Oh, on the contrary!” answered Rowan, “There are plenty of books about you! You, Isabeth, I’ve seen many of in my time -” she waved a flippant hand, “You, on the other hand, my handsome green friend are something of an anomaly, and you know I do love a good mystery, don’t you! You’re like something out of a fantasy storybook, ugh, I love it!”

“Now you love him…” Fig muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I’m just saying, kinda says something about your character when you start going on about how much you love him after you find out he’s not from Hell! My dad is actually from Hell, and I think that your attitude, is seriously hurtful right now!”  
“Well, my apologies to your father, dear, and please know I have nothing against the armies of the damned plane! I am merely referring to the mystery of it all, my dear. I am, ahem, a _mature_ woman, though I might not look it, and for me to have not seen something in my time is quite exciting! Though I really do like your style, it’s very punk rock, it’s like - it’s like demon chic! You know, too often I see a demon walking around in the same old bug-covered, rag _accouterments,_ you know, I’m glad to see the youth are finally spicing it up!”  
Fig flipped her hair, her edge slightly softened by the well-suited compliment. “Well…” she said, still cautious, “Thanks.” Her eyes then lit up suddenly, and her hand went to her ear, where she wrapped a gentle hand around her earring, which was a long, dim orange feather. “Oh!” she said, “I almost forgot!”  
“What?” asked Gorgug. 

Fig took out her earring, holding it gingerly in her hands. She shut her eyes. “Ayda, if you can hear me, I need… well, I don’t know if I need you, cause if you’re busy you can go back to what you’re doing, but… I’m somewhere super weird and I would… really appreciate your company!”  
She opened her eyes. The feather remained dim, and the car remained silent. A look of crushing disheartenment appeared in Fig’s face. 

Watching her intently, Rowan leaned over towards Gorgug. “Is there something happening?” she asked, in a whisper.

“No, it isn’t working,” answered Gorgug sympathetically.

“Ah…” said Rowan. Without asking any further questions, she turned her eyes to the window. “Shame.”   



	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several more of the Bad Kids reunite. Kristen and Pete have a discussion in a cab. The dream team starts so consider how Pete may be involved in the appearance of these fantastical teens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy yall!! so um i am currently getting Burnt Out, ngl. the support has been incredible but you may unfortunately have to be patient,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, im sure its the quarantine, what can you do. if i get too sick of it ill probably put up some old Good Omens fics i did a little while ago! idk if thats within the realm of what yall like but,,,,, ah well. tis still my hobby, and nothing more.

Meanwhile, in the back of a taxi, rode the voice of dreams and the voice of doubt. Both of them were soaking wet. 

Pete readjusted in his seat to finagle his phone out of his pocket, then opened his texts with Kingston. He wasn’t really sure what to say to him - generally he just liked to keep in touch with him. Made him feel grounded - Hell, he was the vox populi. He was a grounding guy. His fingers hovered for a moment over the keyboard, before he shot off a message.

**met a girl in a cafe with a weird dream aura and gave her a tictac. taking her to the gos. how u doin? any cool patients?**

Kingston detested text, but he tolerated it for Pete - though, whenever he could, he would try to get him to call him. Pete saw the ellipsis pop up, though he turned his phone over regardless - it would take him a good two or three minutes to send even a few incoherent sentence fragments and he knew that. He looked at Kristen, who was looking with fascination at the device in his lap. 

She smiled slightly. “What’s the deal with your crystal?” she asked. Pete gave her a vacant stare. “Is that like… a cool case or whatever?”  
“Oh, my phone?” asked Pete, holding it up to show her, “Have you never seen a phone before? Come on, no way, you must have.”  
“Well I have my crystal,” answered Kristen, and pulled it out of her pocket. Pete cocked his head at the clear class rectangle with the ornate, crystalline edges, at the way you could see the leg of her pants through the apparently arcane display of softly lit app logos, none of which he recognized. He squinted at it, repositioning himself. The light from the crystal, as well as the general aura of the young girl flickered pink and purple with shifting, whimsical dream energy, more so than everything else around him. While she was very much there, in a way he could see partway through her. It wasn’t that she was transparent - it was more like he could know what was behind her, if he wanted. Like the more he looked at her, the more he knew she didn’t _have_ to be there. 

Kristen laughed, embarrassed. “You keep looking at me,” she said uncomfortably, chuckling uneasily, “Uhh, do I look that weird? I didn’t have time to go shopping since I just got, um, kidnapped!”

“No. No. Don’t worry about it,” insisted Pete, “It’s probably just the tic-tacs.”  
His phone went off, and he turned it over. 

**king** **👑** **🩺:**

**Doing fine . I am also going to Society . Helping group of teens . U have met any Elves or Halves-Elves in Nod ? Glad you are still on tic tacs and clean . Will meet you there with dream girl . Is dream girl hurt ?**

Pete glanced at Kristen. “You hurt at all?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“Hurt? Did you hurt yourself, you know…”

“Oh! No I think I’m… fine.”

Pete shot back:

**dream girl’s name is kristen btw and shes fine. also no if you mean elves like the fantasy kind im pretty sure theyre fake?? ill ask nod when i see them tho. why do u ask?**

He put his phone down for another moment, before glancing at Kristen. “Hey, what’s with the crazy question mark?” he asked. 

“Oh, this old thing?” joked Kristen, “It’s my staff, it’s for my Goddex. You may have heard of them? Cassandra? They basically stand for like, doubt, and like, there are no answers, and… standing in the forest alone and not being afraid. I honestly think they could be like, super up your alley.”

Pete chuckled, and put his hands up. “Alright, I bought you a croissant, you don’ t have to do your scientology pitch as soon as you get me in a cab-”

“My what pitch?” asked Kristen.

“Scientology,” answered Pete, “No, not ringing a bell? God, where are you  _ from?” _

“I am from… a beautiful place. And spiritually? You could go there too. Literally I am from Spire, but spiritually, we’re really all from the same place.”

Pete made no attempt to hide rolling his eyes and groaning as his phone lit up again, and he read the new text from Kingston. 

**king** **👑** **🩺:**

**Teens I have met are saying they are an Elf and a Half-elf . Weird shit going down . There is a goblin also , who I have not met . Please ask Kristen if she knows anyone named Riz , Fabian , or Adaine . Thx**

Pete glanced up. “Hey, my friend wants to know if you know anyone named Riz, Fabian, or… Ad-Adaine?”

Kristen’s face lit up. “Yeah, those are my friends!” she said.

“Oh, they are? Tight.”

“Yeah, can you take me to them?”

“Uh, think I already am, but sure. Hold up a sec,”

**she says they’re her friends!**

There were a few moments of bated breath, Kristen watching Pete’s crystal, before the text came back in.

**king** **👑** **🩺:**

**Great . Meet me at Occult Society . All will b explained .**

Riz’s long ears perked up like those of a wolf long before Esther was any the wiser at the sound of shoes coming up the steps - four pairs, as a matter of fact, two lighter than the others. As he sprung up out of his seat he heard the grand doors open

“Riz, that must be your friends!” exclaimed Sofie excitedly.

He nodded enthusiastically and hopped to his feet. As he hurried through the bookshelves Esther, Sofie, and Kugrash all followed, until they found a group of four people. In the front was Kingston, taking off his coat and hanging it just beside the door, and Ricky, who was shaking off the rainwater like a dog. Behind them were Adaine, and a very tired looking Fabian leaning against the doorframe. Both of them lit up to see him.

“Guys, hey!” Riz greeted excitedly.

Fabian smiled weakly. “Hey, the Ball, thank goodness we- oh my God, what the  _ fuck  _ is that?!” His eyes had made their way to Kugrash, and was now stumbling backwards into the closed door. Riz glanced back at the rat, and then back at Fabian.

“Oh, that’s like a big rat guy, Kug, I think his name was?”  
“Kugrash, yeah,” answered Kugrash.

“I haven’t really had time to learn his deal, but he helped me out and stuff, so he’s cool,” Riz assured him. 

Kugrash nodded in his direction. “Pleasure to meet ya, kid,” he said, a sardonic tone to his voice. Fabian was even more pale than he had been a moment ago. 

Adaine creased her eyebrows. “Sorry, so are you like a whole person, or…”

“Yeah, I’m a whole person, I’m just like also like a fuckin’ rat guy. Don’t worry about it,” answered Kugrash, with a dismissive wave of his paw. 

With a grin, Sofie held out her hands. “Don’t worry about him sweetie, he just hasn’t had his ‘do’ in a while. You know how it is when the roots grow out!” Unsolicited she pulled out a comb and squatted onto her heels, starting to touch up the large rat’s fur the way one might touch up a stylish summer haircut. Kugrash tolerated this - while his rodent features were hard to read, he even seemed almost pleased by it.

“Thank you, thank you. Yeah, the rain isn’t like a super… sexy look for me.”

“Oh, okay, I didn’t know we were going for sexy, I’ll make it into a sexy rat do this time,” Sofie assured, half jokingly. Fabian wobbled and groaned, as if more nauseous than before. Ricky moved to catch him, but abstained when he saw that he was stable. 

“Are you alright?” he asked firmly. 

He nodded. 

“He’s fine,” Adaine spoke up.

“Yeah, he’s got a thing about sexy rats, so if everyone could just stop talking about it,” Riz recommended firmly.

“A  _ thing  _ about  _ sexy rats? _ ” asked Esther, looking deeply perplexed. 

“Yeah, he’s just got like a thing about it, don’t worry about it.”

“The Ball…” Fabian groaned. 

Kugrash creased his eyebrows, “A thing  _ for  _ sexy rats or  _ about _ ?” he asked, “Cause I’m not a prude or nothing but you should probably get yourself a rat your own age.”

Fabian gagged. 

Sofia smacked him lightly. “No, I think he means like a mental health thing, like it’s one of his triggers, is ‘sexy rat’.”  
“Okay, it is not a _trigger,”_ argued Fabian, holding up a hand.

Ricky held out a welcoming hand. “If we wanna go over triggers as a group and avoid situations like this-”

“I didn’t really think we’d have to, it is honestly extremely shocking that it even got brought up!” answered Fabian.

Riz threw his arms out in defense. “Well I was trying to help you out cause of your thing about sexy rats!”  
Fabian raised his voice and said, “ _If one more person in this room says the word ‘sexy’ and the word ‘rat’ in the same sentence I swear to God-”_ _  
_ “Alright.” 

When Kingston spoke the word rang out throughout the entire chamber, reverberating to everyone’s ears as each they’d all been whispered to softly and cautiously. The actual volume of the word was staggering, especially considering that it had barely been above a whisper. In a second, the entire room was quiet and all the eyes were on Kingston. “Alright,” he repeated, “Fabian, I don’t have time to unpack what your thing about… rats and whatever is, but that’s your business. That’s your business, not mine, but what is my business is that you were legally dead on the table for almost a minute today, and I think we should get you a place to sit down while we work this out.”

Fabian looked for a moment like he was going to object out of pride, before recognizing the shakiness of his legs and paleness of his hands, and nodding sharply. 

“Let’s get back to the conference area,” Esther suggested, “Follow me.”  
The rest of the group wound back through the bookshelves to the circle of chairs, the adults flocking towards the front as Esther placed an affectionate hand on Ricky’s shoulder and began speaking to him in muted tones. Riz fell to the back with Adaine and Fabian and cast Adaine an anxious look, as if to say _Fabian’s never like this._ And he was right. There was something more than the fact that he had been hurt - he got hurt all the time, bloodied, shaken, bruised, and he always licked the blood off his lips and got back up for round two. But now he was _weak,_ a word Riz never wanted to use to describe Fabian. He looked tired, and small, and frightened. He hadn’t looked like this, Riz thought fearfully, since the incident at Leviathan. Adaine sent him a sympathetic look back: _I know, but later._

Once everybody was sat down, Kingston spoke up again. “Now,” he said, “I was just texting a friend of mine, and he says he’s with a girl named Kristen. He said she’s one of your friends?”  
“Yes, she’s with us!” said Adaine eagerly, and all three of the teens exchanged hopeful looks. Adaine looked to the other two, “That must mean Gorgug and Fig are nearby, too.”  
“Gorgug and Fig?” asked Kingston.

“Our other two friends,” answered Riz, “There’s six of us. We’re called the Bad Kids, we’re an adventuring party. Me, Fabian, Adaine, Kristen, Fig, and Gorgug.”

“Adventuring party…” whispered Esther to herself. 

“Ooh!” said Adaine, raising a finger, “I can do locate person!”

“W-well yes, I-I… go for it!” Fabian stammered. 

Riz and Fabian looked on with intense fascination as Adaine shut her eyes and then opened them again, half-lidded, a powerful white glow taking over the blue and back in her irises and pupils and spilling out through her lashes like a canopy. She sat there for several quiet seconds, her two friends looking on with concern. 

“Hey,” whispered Kugrash while they did that, not taking his eyes off them, “Any of this starting to feel like something out of a storybook to you guys?”

“I was just about to say,” agreed Kingston softly, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say they hopped right out The Lord Of The Rings.”

“Maybe you’re not too far off,” said Esther, a soft concern in her voice. 

“What do you mean?” asked Kugrash.

“Has Pete been reading lately?”  
Before any of them could consider the connotations of that question, Adaine snapped her eyes shut, and then open again, her icy blue irises returning, filled with excitement. “Fig is close!”  
On the other side of the room, the doors opened up again with an ancient sounding creak, and everyone snapped to attention. 

“Hello, my lovelies! Make yourselves pretty, I’ve brought guests!” came the ringing voice of Rowan Berry. Kingston smiled warmly, and rose from his seat as she emerged through the bookshelves. 

“Rowan. You’re looking as beautiful as always. Is this a new color?” he said, and gestured to her hair. 

“If you could believe it, Kingston, this is just what happens when I get a little sun!”

“Hey!” the muted conversation was interrupted by the shrill teenage voice of the young, punk tiefling already smoking a clove and stepping up to the chairs. “Gorgug, it’s Riz, Fabian, and Adaine!”

The three present bad kids rose to their feet and exclaimed excitedly at the sight of them. A moment later Gorgug followed after her, grinning more openly than usual. “Oh - hey guys!”  
“Gorgug!” Fabian said excitedly, “How are you two, are you alright?”  
“Yeah, we… scared a bunch of people. Well, it was more me, really,” Gorgug said guiltily, “I guess I’m a little scary here? I don’t know where we are.”

“It’s my fault, I should have used disguise self on him instead of me, sorry Gorgug,” answered Fig. This caught Esther’s attention.

“They found you out?” she asked lowly. 

Rowan paused for a moment from catching up with Kingston. “Don’t worry, darling, it’s all taken care of. I saw to it that everything blew right over, no one’s the wiser, I assure you.”

Riz creased his eyebrows. “I actually ran into the same thing,” said Riz, “They’re saying there’s nothing but humans here. So like, Fabian, Adaine, you can probably get away with it cause it’s just the ears, but me and you guys are … I think in pretty hot water.”

“Why would there  _ just  _ be humans here?” asked Fabian.

“Take a look at this.”

Riz waved a hand to the rest of the bad kids, who gathered around him. Fabian leaned over to see him and Adaine switched chairs to sit on the other side of him, while Gorgug and Fig walked around behind the chairs. Riz opened the book he’d been given to the same page as before, and they began talking amongst themselves. 

“So, somebody fill me in here, are goblins, orcs, and elves and stuff a real thing, or no?” asked Sofie, in a hushed voice. On the other side of the circle, the adults were gathered around, huddled standing casting wary eyes at the group of children.

“Not that I know of,” answered Kingston, “I think Esther makes a good, albeit worrying point. This may very well be Pete’s doing.”

“Yes but why would he do that?” asked Ricky fairly, “He can make anything he wants real and he picks a group of high fantasy teenagers?”

Kingston shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. 

“Maybe it’s cause he’s sober,” brought up Kugrash, “He is sober, isn’t he?”

“Well - well yes.”

“The crazy powerful shit we saw him do, that was him baked out of his mind. Who the Hell knows what he can do sober?” elaborated Kugrash.

Rowan shrugged. “It’s possible,” she said, “I wasn’t going to mention it, but there certainly have been vox phantasmas much more in touch with their abilities than he was. I always just assumed it was age, or that he wasn’t interested, but it could have been the drugs.”

“Do we think this is gonna be a problem?” asked Esther, “We can’t have Pete making sentient life all willy-nilly, God knows what we’re gonna do with these kids alone.”

Kingston raised a hand. “Well, as it is, we don’t know they were made by Pete, and what is _certainly_ not on the table is drugging him back up before we even know what’s going on. Is there any way you guys know to get them under the umbral arcana?”  
“If they’re not already under it? No,” answered Esther.

“Maybe we take them to Nod?” asked Sofia, “See if they know what they are, if not, we know they’re not from the world of dreams?”

Kugrash made a cautious sound, casting a look at the intensely discussing children. “We’d have to get to the train station and I don’t know if I want to drag some of these kids through New York. The demon girl might pass as a cosplayer or something, but the tall green one’s got black eyes and stands about a head taller than everyone else. As for the goblin, I’d like to see a hood that could hide those ears.”

Rowan creased her eyebrows. “It’s New York! It’s not such a big deal, I’m sure they’ll think it’s a very clever costume! The people at my show believed it!”

“People believe anything you say, Rowan, it’s your claim to fame,” Kingston argued. 

“Kugrash is right,” agreed Esther, “Even if people _might_ might overlook it, it’s not just the civilians I’m talking about. There are all kinds of forces who’d want to be… made aware if people from the dream world were made real. There’s a reason we keep the dream world separate from the fake - we start letting people outside the umbral arcana and the fey are gonna start bitching in seconds, not to mention the demons, who’ve never wanted anything to do with the umbral arcana to begin with. That’s not even considering the fact that if people from Nod find out dreams are getting the chance to be brought into the real world there’ll be a rebellion, and closing that door will be impossible. We have to keep these kids under the radar.”  
“I think the demon one said that she had the spell ‘disguise self’...” Ricky mentioned, “She could probably use that on one of them.”  
“Might not last long enough. We’d have to ask her,” answered Esther. 

“They can stay at my place!” Sofia offered, “I’ve got a guest bedroom with a couple beds, I could bring in a little cot, lay out some blankets for ‘em. I’ll make sure the funky looking ones are alright. We can have a movie night!”  
“Hey, that might not be such a bad idea,” said Kugrash. 

“I’d just have to run them over to Staten Island.”

“So did anyone have any ideas for where to put these kids?” asked Ricky. 


	8. Nod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more humanoid of the bad kids are taken by Pete and Ricky to Nod, where they face some unfortunate news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finally did another chapter of this one!!!!! this one is slow going but! i do my best. 
> 
> but my darling followers if you care for me and cherish me go read my new fic Devotion Makes The Man!!!!!! its a Lapin backstory fic (which is luckily not made impossible by the new episode like im sure eVERYONE ELSES LAPIN FICS WERE DAMN YOU BRENNAN) that i am really happy with so far!! expect more chapters of that soon, probably before this just because Thats What My Mind Wants To Write :3

The train to Nod was a strange and ugly thing. The bad kids assumed that neither of their adult mentors had plane shift, or else they wouldn’t have taken the crowded, hot little boxy train in some underground tunnel whose walls were covered in graffiti and grime. Homeless beggars made little hardboard houses underground, and troupes of people nearly walked over them. Inside the train itself there were no seats left, and all they could do was hold tight to loops tied to the ceiling. Pete and Ricky got on and stood holding onto nothing, legs perfectly steady. The bad kids (or all who were in attendance) separated just by a hair, letting a person or two get between them so they could talk alone. All three of them were wobbly, and staring at the eclectic group of people around them. Fabian was the only one who could stand alone - he was gaining some strength back now, and that on top of the fact that he’d spent much of his life on the sea made the rocking really very easy to tolerate. 

“So, Adaine,” he said, turning to her, “We never really got to… to unpack what your whole deal with this city was?”  
Kristen looked at the two of them. “What do you mean?”  
Adaine glanced between them. End of the line. She sighed. “I may have… sort of been having pretty frequent dreams of this city before we got here,” she admitted, “But it was just a dream!”

“Oh, just a dream!” scoffed Fabian.

“You’re the oracle, you’ve been having the same dream about a crazy weird city and that didn’t seem like something to tell us?!”  
“Well!” Adaine said sharply, “First of all, it wasn’t… exactly a dream, it was more like a daydream, I guess. When I trance I go into a sort of… intense fantasy period in my brain. But - there’s a huge different between dreams and visions, I can tell the difference! This was not a vision!”

“Well, maybe it was a subtle one,” thought Fabian aloud, “You dreamt of a city, we’re in a city.”

Adaine shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said, “Usually visions are a few days before at the most. I’ve had this dream all my life.”

The two of them were giving her a look, the same look. A little confused, and just a hair betrayed. 

“What?” she asked.

“Well, you’d just think-” said Fabian flippantly, “I don’t know, we talk about dreams all the time.”

“Yeah, I mean, nightmares, weird sex dreams, I mean during those sleepovery conversations you’re usually really like… forthcoming about it. I remember you told us about that one with Riz at the carnival where you were doing your homework…”

“Yes, well, that was a different dream! Maybe this one’s personal!” Adaine said sharply.

“But in that one you were like, fully naked and in a tap dancing competition and Riz kicked your ass, that’s got to be more personal,” argued Fabian. 

“Yes, well, maybe it’s my business, alright?!” Adaine snapped. Kristen and Fabian were wide eyed for a moment. Adaine  _ never  _ snapped like that. They exchanged a look, and then all of them went quiet. 

The train pulled to a stop, one of many, but on this one the entire crowd of people poured out in a pulse. The voice over the intercom, deeply distorted said something about this being the last stop, the end of the line. In seconds, the train car was fully empty - a sight that Pete still found sincerely grim as an old friend of New York. The teens looked over at him and Ricky, confused.

“The voice said it’s the end of the line,” Kristen said aloud.

“Not for us,” Pete assured her.

Fabian leaned over one of the seats to see the window. Beyond this was nothing but brick. It was like the voice said. End of the line. “Um, I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling and gesturing to the window, “Are we going to… teleport or something, do like a plane-shift?”  
Pete laughed, and popped a tic-tac. “Um… no,” he said, “No, we’re just gonna do it.”

“The train goes through the brick,” Adaine said, knowing it well. Her eyes had brightened, ears perking up.

“How do you know that?” asked Pete, and she went quiet. 

True enough, the militant chugging of the train had started up again, and the train went on in the direction it had been going. Through the window the brick got closer, closer, and closer, before with a  _ whoosh _ they passed right through it like air into the world of dreams. 

Fabian, Kristen, and Adaine rushed to the window like children on Christmas. Suddenly the city had exploded into a thousand colors - building stuck out at odd angles in sky blues and cherry reds like popsicles in their boxes, with spirals of incredible flying birds making rounds across an impossibly starry night. Creatures of all shapes and sizes walked the streets thick and bright, sentient bugs, inanimate objects, mythical creatures and occasional abstract shapes conversing amongst themselves and spinning up into the sky. Above them the moon shined down, a beautiful round face with heavy mascara and dark red lips against an ivory, dented face. Though she was impossibly far away and behind glass, they all heard from behind their heads, “Oh, would you look at that, the train’s coming in! Pete’s back!” 

At the sound of her voice the bad kids jumped and whipped around, turning back just in time for the train to chug to a stop. Pete adjusted the lapels on his rain coat, grinned and slicked back his hair. “Ricky, how do I look?”

Ricky gave him his classic, billboard thumbs up. “Really cool,” he assured him.

“Awesome.”

The train slid to a stop, and the train door opened. Immediately there was an entourage of shifting neon _beings_ throwing up whatever they had that was closest to arms and exclaiming “Pete!”  
He stepped off the train, his converse hovering ever so slightly over the purple light of the pavement, as always. He grinned, immediately settling into his place. His shoulders lowered and he took long, confident steps across the ground. Immediately rushing up to him came the bugs, the unicorn, the talking bill-boards, the walking toys, the cakes and the rabbits, the paintings and the fish. He greeted them all, stood above them as their King. But it wasn’t long before he realized that excitement wasn’t the only mood in the crowd. 

“Pete, Pete!” a voice said. It was the unicorn, scraping its hoof across the ground, “Nod’s gone!”  
At this point Ricky was stepping out from behind him, and the bad kids were stepping cautiously towards the door. Pete’s face fell. “What do you mean Nod’s gone?” he asked, face going white.

“W-we don’t know! They got taken or something! We’re so glad you came, we don’t have any idea who’s taken them! We know they’re okay, since, well - all this is their mind, so, it can’t be too bad right?”

Pete went quiet, staring down at the ground. His heart was racing. Gone? Nod couldn’t be  _ gone.  _ A thousand panicked ideas came to his head as to how they might have been hurt, how they might have been killed. But the unicorn was right - Nod, the world, was the mind of Nod, the being. If they were hurt, he’d know. He’d know  _ immediately.  _

“Pete,” said a high pitched voice - at the front of the crowd, it was Pizza Rat, “Who are your friends?”  
Suddenly all eyes were on the bad kids, who were wide-eyed and blinking at the incredible crowd. 

“Uh…” Pete said, still reeling. After a moment he pulled himself back together and gestured to them, “Uh, these are some teens… that showed up. They’ve got dream energy but they’re not from here, so I don’t really know what… their deal is,” he said, “This is Kristen, Adaine, and, uh, Fabian.”

There was a chorus of hi’s and hello’s. Kristen and Adaine were beaming ear to ear. Fabian gawked at them. Kristen with her lack of fear, Adaine with whatever weird ties she had to this city, he thought. This was all fully  _ insane,  _ and a lot to take in, to say the least. He missed the Ball.

“Hello!” said Kristen brightly, in return, “Hey, this place is… crazy!” she said, half to herself and half to them.

“Hi, I’m Adaine,” she said, “I don’t suppose there’s a chance you know who I am?”  
A finch made entirely of blue light landed on the shoulder of a hulking trash can goliath. “Well, that’s an easy one!” it squawked, “You’re Adaine! You just said!”  
“Oh, well, yes, I know that,” Adaine giggled, “But… I dream about this city. If you’re dreams, have you ever seen me here? I mean I could - I could feel myself hovering there, but - but I could never come here or speak before.”  
“I’ve never seen you,” said the mailbox goliath, and the rest of the group chirped in agreement, “But if you’d like the tour and are friends of Pete’s we’d be happy to give it to you.”  
Kristen lit up. “Uh, _yes!”_ she said.

Fabian threw an arm in front of her. “Uh, uh, you know, maybe we - maybe we stay with our, um, mentors here, we’ve all had some… some bad experiences with dream magic, haven’t we Kristen? Adaine?”

“That was Nightmare magic!” Kristen said, and shoved his arm back down to his side, “Little, uh… rat with the pizza. This place doesn’t have nightmares in it, does it?”

“That depends,” he squeaked, “Do you wanna have nightmares?”

Adaine and Kristen shook their heads. 

“Then no!”  
“Awesome!” Laughed Kristen. 

Adaine grinned, and looked to Pete and Ricky. “Ricky, can we go?”  
Ricky smiled. “Hey, just keep those kids together, pizza rat,” he said with a point, “Have a blast, you guys.”

“Yes!” said Adaine, punching the air. Already the three of them were starting to sway, to hover, wobbling in the air, glowing with purple and pink light.

“Awesome!” laughed Kristen.

Fabian kicked in the air, grabbing Kristen’s wrist. “This is a terrible idea!” he declared. 

“Where do we start ‘em, Pete?” asked Pizza Rat, now beginning to hover at about their eye level as well. 

Pete was still looking down, visibly distracted. “Uh, just… the - the planets room, I guess?”  
“Great choice!” Pizza Rat said, pointing at him, “Come on kids, let’s check it out!”  
Leaving a silver trail behind him the Pizza Rat shot off into the sky, and as if tied on by a string the bad kids rushed forward behind them. Kristen shot off into the sky with a powerful ‘wee!’ all the while she was flying. 

When they were gone, Pete turned to Ricky. “Why did they ask you?” he asked.

“What?” Ricky answered.

“She asked you if she could go, I am  _ clearly  _ in charge of the dream world.”

“Oh. Well, maybe it’s just like a sort of… confidence thing. I also gave them snacks.”

Pete pivoted towards him. “Is that a thing? I thought the whole ‘give them snacks if they do good’ was for like dogs, and horses.”  
“Yeah no, teens too.”

“Huh,” Pete said, “What do teens eat?”  
“What do _teens eat?”_ _  
_ “Nevermind, let’s just - see if we can find out what happened to Nod!” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The less human-appearing members of the bad kids are forced to stay with Sofia at her home in Staten Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is UP gang!! so this fic has been kicking me in the ass a little bit but! here is a new chapter nonetheless. i may slow down in posting maybe? not sure, just working on an original piece right now and thats getting most of my attention. if yall are real ride or die's i may even put it on here, see if any of y'all would enjoy some original content :eyes:. but hey maybe not. sidenote (CROWN OF CANDY SPOILERS)
> 
> holy shit fucking CUMULUS??????? IS SO DOPE???? i assure you as SOON as they give us a little more info about him there are gonna be some cumulus fics BLASTING out of this account so look forward to THAT. zac i ADORE you.
> 
> (SPOILERS OVER) enjoy everyone!! dont forget to leave a comment if you liked it!

Sofia considered herself alright with kids. She was still wrapping her mind around the fact that all three of them were the same age - the goblin who looked to be no older than 10, the roughly sixteen year old looking tiefling, and the half-orc who she’d pin at around 25. That said, as far as she was concerned, you couldn’t go wrong with the basics. By the time the teens had been teleported as close to her house as she could get and snuck the rest of the way there they all looked distinctly miserable, and she was quick to get them inside, dry them off, light a fire. The house in Staten Island hadn’t sold yet, and it was still very much hers - the fun pink furniture and floral decor said that quite well. By the door was the fireman’s calendar, open to March, of course, even this far into April. Watching them all sopping wet was almost too sad to see, so quickly she got together some clothes for all of them. Fig was easiest - for her she picked out a casual black blouse and a pair of jeans and they seemed like they’d fit just about right. As for Gorgug, it took a little searching. Eventually she came upon some of Dale’s clothes (Dale was perhaps a full foot shorter than this kid, but at least a little broader than she was), a tremendously oversized hoodie and pair of sweatpants with the waist band stretched all the way out. As for the goblin… well, lucky for her she had a little white sweater and pair of oddly shaped khaki pants she’d gotten as a novelty gift from her mother a few years ago. She decided not to bring up to him that they were intended for her late French poodle Wendy.

“Alright!” she said brightly, coming out with a stack of clothes to the group of teens by the fire, water dripping from their hair. “This was a challenge, but I have got for Isabeth a blouse and some of my favorite jeans. For Gorgug here, we have a hoodie, looks a lot like yours, isn’t that funny? And some sweatpants, ooh, comfy! And for my guy Riz we have the cutest little sweater. Yeah, isn’t that fun?” she looked at their blank expressions, “It… may be a little not your style, and I get it, I do, but! You guys look really wet and really cold and I promise I won’t take any pictures.” 

“I’ll pass,” Riz said sharply, his arms crossed. 

Sofia’s smile fluctuated for a moment, looking around at the faces, who all seemed to be in agreement. “Well,” she said, “I’ll just leave ‘em here for you, and let you know there’s a bathroom just down the hall, first door on the right, ok guys?”

Several of them nodded. With that, Kugrash scurried into the house after them, a bag in his hand. Hurriedly he started pulling styrofoam boxes out of it. “Alright, I wasn’t sure what you guys ate, but I’m seeing a lot of pointy teeth so I went a little meat heavy, hope that’s not racist. We’ve got… pork dumplings, beef sticks, pork lo mein, general tso’s chicken and… a couple of egg rolls. I went a little overboard, Sof, hope you don’t mind. Figured the kids’d be hungry,” he said, and hurried over to her, placing the meager change in her hand with his little pink paw.

“Thank you, Kug, and it’s all good,” she said. She got down on her knees near the fire to be on everyone’s level. 

Immediately all three of them perked up, particularly Riz and Gorgug, Riz’s cat pupils dilating at the smell alone and Gorgug’s mouth watering. All three of them hadn’t eaten in longer than usual and it had felt like even longer - that said, it was true what they said about teenage boys, and even truer what they said about teenage goblins and orcs. Nevertheless, Riz crossed his arms. “We’re not hungry,” he said coldly. 

“Aw, come on guys,” Sofie encouraged. “Look, see, I’ll prove I’m not poisoning you because I want some too, I’m starved. One sec, lemme grab some plates!” she stood and made her way to the kitchen for a moment before returning with a small stack of ceramic plates, passing them out in front of everyone. Then she set her own up on her lap where her skirt stretched over her knees and grabbed herself a set of wooden chopsticks, cracked them open, and picked a dumpling out of one of the boxes. The kids watched her like she were engaging in some kind of ritual. Very clearly to all of them, she took a bite. “Mm,” she exclaimed, “Kug, this is good, where’s this from?”

“Little stand on Fifteenth. I can’t usually go into establishments and what not, but I know the guy, he’s fresh off the streets so he helped me out,” Kugrash explained, “It’s not like the usual trash I eat, I promise, it’s like normal, good fuckin’ food.”

“Mm! It just occurred to me!” said Sofia, setting her chopsticks down for a moment, “No China on your world right? No Chinese food.”  
“China, is that near here?” asked Fig, cocking her head at it.

“Oh, no, hun. More like the other side of the world. But! You get the folks from chinatown up in Staten Island and they make it just like they do there. I mean, I can only imagine, not like I’ve been.” There was another uncomfortable silence, before Kugrash spoke up.

“Look, kids, I get that you don’t trust us, and I get it, yeah? You wake up in some weird fuckin’ city and a rat guy wakes you up in a gutter or, well, whatever happened to you two, and now you have to stay at someone’s house. It’s - it’s a lot. But I do kind of feel like if we wanted to kill you we would have, and we certainly wouldn’t have brought you back to life. In… reference to your pirate buddy we met before, that is.”  
“His name’s Fabian,” Riz said bitterly, arms still crossed, “Why _are_ you helping us, anyway? You’ve never seen anything like us, you’ve got no skin in the game.”  
Gorgug leaned over to him. “I think maybe they’re just being nice,” he put out.

“Thank you, Gorgug,” said Sofia, “You’re very right, we just wanna make sure you guys are okay and we can get you back home.”  
“I don’t know, I think I’m kind of with Riz, I mean why are you trying to separate us? Where exactly did that shirtless guy take Fabian, Kristen, and Adaine? Our crystals are down, how are we supposed to know if they’re okay?” berated Fig. “All of this feels pretty weird to me.”  
“Well, I’d argue that it _is_ pretty weird, for all of us,” said Kugrash, “And I’m certain your friends are fine. If you’re worried, I’m sure Sof can let you text them over her and Ricky or Pete’s phones, right Sof?”  
“Oh yeah, course!” she said, “And they’re just there so that we can find out what’s happened to them, and to all of you! As for you guys, I was thinking maybe we could have a little movie night!” she slapped her knees, grinning brilliantly in her startling, clownish makeup, “Do you guys have movies where you’re from?”  
“Yeah, we- we have movies,” said Gorgug, cautiously smiling, “I think they’re different movies, though.”  
“Well, I can only guess!” said Sofie, “Let’s see here. You guys get some food, I’ll boot Netflix up.”

She stood up and rushed to the T.V., picking up the remote and starting up the screen. The bad kids huddled even closer. They were dreadfully uncomfortable in their sopping wet clothes, their stomachs growling and their eyes darting around the unfamiliar house. Riz was looking around frantically for any sign of… well, anything. In the minutes he was quiet he’d constructed Sofie’s entire life through pictures on the mantle, bits of hair on the edge of the couch, the color of the walls. Clean, unused. She didn’t usually live here. She’s married - no, was married. Divorced? No, widowed. Thus she left the house. Fig, in the meantime, shot the two of them each a wink and they got that feeling of a rush in their chest and the taste in their throat like they’d just eaten something spicy. They nodded, and thanked her for the bardic. Gorgug was the only one who wasn’t being conventionally helpful - he was staring at the food, and the warm, dry clothes.

“Guys, I - I really think they’re just being nice,” he said, “If you want, I can have some before you guys and if I get poisoned or possessed or whatever you’ll know… not to do that. But I mean, I think it’s just food. She had some.”

“Unless she knew what part of it was safe,” said Riz.

“Yeah, or it only poisons non-humans.”  
Gorgug squinted at that. “I don’t think they have… what we are here,” he said, “I don’t think she’d know how to poison us.”

Fig raised her eyebrows. “I mean, if you think it’s okay, go for it. It _does_ smell pretty good.”  
“Alright - how ‘bout this - I’ll see if I can find any poison,” Riz spoke up, pulling one of the boxes to his lap - “Not on the dumplings, because those might be safe anyway. I don’t have my kit, but I should be able to pick up anything that’s not subtle.” The box he’d chosen was the beef sticks. He pulled one out, held it up. Smelled it, tasted it slightly, waited. Meaty, thick, and very greasy. But safe, as far as he could tell. He nodded, and placed the box in front of him. Each of them took one and ate it in seconds. Riz was ashamed to say he almost ate part of the stick below it. 

“This is honestly super good,” said Fig, impressed.

“Isn’t it? I’ll tell you, stand guys know their shit.” Riz jumped at the sound of the rat’s voice speaking up from the edge of the couch, where he’d _assumed_ he was talking to Sofie. Without invitation he was waddling over to them, grabbing a stick of his own and sitting back on the ground with it in both his tiny paws. “Man, have you kids been burned or what? Do you test for poison every time someone tries to feed you?”  
“Well, when they take our friends from us, yeah, we might,” Fig bit back. Gorgug cast her a look.

“We’re um… we’re very grateful that you got this for us, it was very nice of you guys. We just have had to deal with a lot of… bad stuff,” he admitted. “We uh… we’ve had some bad luck with dream stuff, just uh, putting it out there. You guys have never heard of Cassandra or the Nightmare King have you?”  
Kugrash shook his head. “Sof?” he asked.

“I know a florist by that name but I can’t imagine that’s who you’re looking for,” she answered.

“Yeah, no, it’s not,” said Gorgug, “But uh, thank you! I actually am sorta cold so I think I’ll put on this big hoodie, but you’re not gonna like, take our clothes, right?”

“No,” laughed Sofie from the TV, gesturing with her long-nailed fingers again, “No, bud your clothes are your clothes, don’t you worry.”

“Awesome!” Gorgug said brightly. He picked up the clothes meant for him and looked to his two friends. He lowered his voice. “I think they’re cool guys. You sure you don’t… wanna change?”  
The two of them were quiet, visibly tempted. 

“Come on, guys, remember when Fabian caught pneumonia? That was a disaster.”

“I feel like Fabian had some other stuff going on at the time,” said Riz, creasing his eyebrows. Nevertheless he lifted up the little sweater meant for him. It looked like it would fit very well. “Excuse me, um, Sofie,” he said, “Sorry for prying but do you have kids?” 

“Uh… no,” she looked over at him, and pointed, “Oh, that. Yeah, no, it was supposed to be a little gift a while back for a friend with kids, never ended up seeing her. A little family drama before I could get to the party so I just ended up… keeping it.” That was only a half lie - she  _ had  _ been planning on regifting it. Riz eyed her warily and then decided to buy it. He nodded to Gorgug. Fig shrugged.

“Yeah, what the Hell,” she said, and reached into her pocket, withdrawing a clove, “Can I smoke in here?”

“Alright but next to the window,” Sofie said with a sympathetic sigh.

“Thank you,” said Fig, and followed the other two in standing up with their clothes.

The bad kids took turn changing in the bathroom, peeling off their ice cold, sopping clothes and replacing them with warm cotton. However suspicious it was, it was almost too heavenly for them to care. Gorgug’s clothes were slightly small, the hoodie serving almost as a crop top, the pants riding up around his calves. He winced modestly, pulling the edge of the black hoodie back around his midriff every time it moved, or trying to get the sweatpants higher around his waist without it starting to hurt. Fig changed next and looked equally uncomfortable, repeatedly fixing the waist of her jeans and pulling up the very low ruffled collar of the blouse. Riz changed last, and took some coaxing out of the bathroom. 

“This is stupid, I’m putting my clothes back on,” he said from behind the door.

“Riz, it’s just for now, it’s the fashion of the world!” Fig shouted back.

“The tag says ‘Furry Fashionistas’! It’s a dog sweater, Fig!”  
Fig snickered loudly, making an unsuccessful attempt to silence it with her hand. Gorgug was pursing his lips and struggling not to laugh as well. Riz’s goblin ears were unfortunately too good for both of them. “You guys are literally laughing at me _as we speak,_ I am _not_ coming out with this on!”  
“Riz, it would just be until your clothes are dry,” Gorgug said softly, “Just see it as like a fun, party sweater. This hoodie’s basically a crop top on me, so, we’re in the same boat.”

“Yeah, and I can barely get this shirt over my bra. I look like Fabian’s mom!”  
“Yeah, well, everyone seems to think Fabian’s mom is pretty hot, so,” argued Riz. 

“Untrue,” answered Gorgug. Fig, just to him, made an ‘a little’ gesture with her thumb and first finger. Gorgug nodded back, and returned the gesture.   
Fig spoke up. “Look, Riz, I promise we’re not gonna make fun of you or take any pictures or anything, but we can’t have you walking around in wet clothes. Honestly, I think from a _logical_ perspective, what we’re wearing is really the least of our worries.” Riz went quiet for a moment. Damn her, she was right, as usual. This was no time to complain about fashion choices, he couldn’t afford to get sick.

With an agonizingly slow squeak of the door Riz Gukgak emerged from the bathroom. It wasn’t nearly as silly as they had expected - the only sign that it wasn’t for a person were some of the odd creases and folds, particularly some extra fabric around the shoulders and just below the waist. Other than that, however, he just looked a bit more  _ artistic  _ than usual, really, tugging at the soft off-whtie turtleneck that scratched at his chin. Weakly he lifted his arms and let them fall and hit his thighs.

Gorgug raised an eyebrow and said, “Weirdly I think you look better than any of us.”

“Whatever,” Riz said dismissively. They were quiet for a moment. The rain was pouring down outside, a thick sort of sound that made shivers run right down your spine. The bad kids could still feel the cold rainwater on the smalls of their backs where the cotton touched, the cold on the napes of their necks. There was a heavy breath as they all stood together, the weirdos of this world. They all exchanged a look.

“I wonder how the others are doing,” Fig pondered aloud. Neither of them answered. All three of them hoped, in unison, that they were safe, and that they were having fun, and then, selfishly corrected, well… maybe not  _ that  _ much fun.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rowan and Kingston go on an unsuccessful mission to find information, and discuss their feelings about Pete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats up gang!!! yall ready for the stream tonight? i hope you all pop on just for a little while............ certainly hope this isnt controversial to any of my followers, but black lives matter!!!!! im so proud of brennan and the gang for putting of acoc for this!!!
> 
> enjoy another ep of this fic, my friends. and to my readers near the riots, please be loud, but stay safe!!!

“Alright. Thanks anyway, Willie.”

With the crunching and groaning of rock against rock, Willie nodded to Kingston and then walked back into the right side of the alley, where the bricks collapsed around him until he had melted completely into its surface. Kingston put his hands on his hips and sighed, turning back to face Rowan. Willie was the last resource after Em, Ana, Amelia, the clock gnomes, and both of Kugrash’s sons. None of them knew anything.

“Ah well,” Rowan sighed. She stepped up to Kingston, covering him once again with her elegant, glittery umbrella. The rain was starting to let up, but slowly, and reluctantly. The smell of the city was still rich with ozone and exhaust. Without thinking, Rowan linked her arm under Kingston’s, and Kingston propped his arm out to her as if there was nothing more natural in the world. “It was unlikely they were going to know anything anyway,” she encouraged. She gestured flippantly, flicking her wrist. “All your friends wander about… the city as it is, darling. You never talk to anyone from Nod, you can’t stand them and you know it.”

Kingston smiled warmly. “Well… I’ll admit I don’t have as many allies from the world of Dreams… But Em and Willy, they’re universal! They know what’s good, they know what’s happening!”  
“Kingston, you haven’t known ‘what’s happening’ since the 1970s.”  
“Okay,” objected Kingston, as he turned out of the alleyway and took to the streets of Manhatten, “That’s rich coming from a woman who peaked in the 20s.”  
“Kingston!” scolded Rowan, “I’m as gorgeous as I ever was and you know it, now take it back!”  
He smiled again, looking down at the rain-spattered sidewalk. “Alright, _Rowan_ ,” he said, “I take it back.”  
She smiled, and for a moment, she leaned her head against Kingston’s shoulder. They walked for a while in the noisy quiet of New York, serenaded by the honking of horns and angry shouting of pedestrians. Feeling a buzz in her fashionable trenchcoat pocket, Rowan withdrew her phone. 

“Anything interesting?” asked Kingston.

“It’s from Sofie. She says ‘I got the kids some fresh clothes and some food. They seem physically fine, but man, these kids are _damaged,’_ in all caps. ‘Kug and I have them set up with a movie now, but we could barely get them to trust us enough for that much. They’ve got a real bond with their friends. Anything happens to the kids in Nod and I don’t doubt these guys are gonna go on a rampage trying to find them. You been in touch with Pete?’” Rowan looked up at Kingston. “You’re his wonderful little father figure, how is he?”  
Kingston looked down, clenching his teeth. He attempted to look casual, shrugging his shoulders. “He uh… he hasn’t texted,” he answered.

Rowan shot him a wary look. “He hasn’t texted or you can’t get through to him?”

“Well…” Kingston said with another shrug, knowing the difference very well, “I may have shot him off a text or two, but you know Nod gets shit service. Besides, Pete’s probably just busy, or got distracted. Kid’s got enough ADHD to inspire an elementary school.”

She finished sending a text back, eyes still on Kingston as her fingers fluttered over the keyboard. He was worrying - he was almost always worrying about something or someone, it was a part of his character. But he had a specific brand of worry just for Pete - harder to dismiss, and harder to hide. His lips pursed and he stared at the ground, harder to talk to, like there was a cloud buzzing around in his head whenever he tried to think or piece the words together. 

Rowan spoke up, “I sent her, ‘Haven’t been in touch with Pete, and I’m terribly sorry about the state of the children. We’ll keep you updated with any news from Nod.’” Rowan tucked her phone back in her pocket, and resumed her hold on the umbrella. It was only then that Kingston noted that she’d been using one hand to text and had the other gingerly wrapped around his arm, and that he wasn’t holding anything. He shot her a look. 

“In the middle of Manhattan?” he asked.

“Give me a break, I needed my hands!” she insisted, and once again gestured irritably with the hand that should have been holding the umbrella. She snapped her fingers and a few specks of glittering purple light blinked away from existence around the handle and hovering near the roof of the umbrella. She snatched it out of the air before it began to fall. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”  
“Who, the kids?”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

Kingston sighed, digging his hands into his pockets. He considered arguing with her for a moment, before proceeding to say, “You think he could have done something like this?”

She thought for a moment, a very old wisdom appearing behind her twenty year old eyes. “Honestly?” she asked, “I don’t.” She shot him a look, “I think he’s been sober for too long and even if he wasn’t, I don’t think he could or  _ would  _ make something like that. If there were… unicorns or dragons flying around that would be one thing. But these are fully realized people,  _ six  _ of them! Creating fully formed life is a lot of work, Kingston. It’s not something you do by slipping up.”

Kingston nodded grimly. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“I… take it there’s more to it than that,” she said sagely, “Talk to me, darling. What’s wrong?”  
He shrugged hopelessly with a heavy breath, looking out onto the buildings and the people that made up the city, _his_ city. “I don’t know,” he said, “I guess I sort of assumed that when you quit drugs the rest of your life just… started happening, I don’t know. But Pete’s been on it so long he doesn’t have anything else. Don’t get me wrong, he’s sober, and he’s doing well. But…” He shook his head, “Sometimes I get the feeling he’s just waking up to wake up. He’s got his job and his workouts with Ricky, sure. But as for what he wants in life…”

“You know exactly what he wants in life, Kingston,” Rowan said kindly. 

Kingston swallowed, looking back down at the ground as a burst of anxiety sank into his chest. He didn’t answer. 

“Allegiance to this city doesn’t mean never leaving it, you know,” she reminded him, “The last Vox Phantasma didn’t leave a great city untouched.”

“That’s different, that’s not the Vox Populai. I was born here and I’m gonna die here, Rowan, you know that.”

She smiled, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Word of advice,” she said, “There’s far more that can happen between those two points than you’ve accounted for.”

He cast her a look. “I can’t be taking vacations, Rowan. This city needs me.”

“Kingston, you know this city through and through, and I know that you know that there  _ is  _ no taking this city down. There’s no betraying New Yorkers. Anything less than betrayal is seen as ‘some weird Southern manners bullshit’. This city relies on no one. That’s what makes it so beautiful - it stands on its own two legs, Kingston. Not yours.”

Kingston looked down, and shook his head. “Why would anyone wanna leave New York?” he muttered to himself.

“It’s only a few miles across, you know. I’m afraid for some people it’s just too small.”

“Okay, New York’s not too small for  _ anyone,  _ not if you know how to look,” he scoffed, anger slipping into his voice.

“Except Pete. All the world will be too small for Pete. That’s what he’s there for - to make things bigger. To make things interesting just because he’s bored.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. He grinned bitterly out to the rain, tears getting caught in his throat. “Certainly made my life interesting!” He tried to make it sound like a jab, but his grief ran right through it. Rowan looked at him sympathetically.

“You know he won’t leave you,” she assured him. 

Kingston kept his gaze coldly outward. Pete had nothing to do with the world - in a literal and metaphorical sense, he was barely part of it. Nothing could really tie him down, and Kingston didn’t consider himself quite important enough to be an exception. If Pete got bored enough, he would always lift his anchor and set sail - it was in his nature. So he  _ wasn’t  _ sure that he wouldn’t leave him. In fact, he had some confidence that he would in the coming months. 

Before Rowan could insist her point to the cynical doctor, Kingston reached into his pocket and withdrew a ringing cellphone. “It’s Pete,” he told Rowan, and then answered it and put it to his ear.

“ _ Kingston!”  _ came a desperate voice from the phone. Kingston stiffened - Pete was sobbing. 

“Pete, what’s going-”

“ _Nod’s gone!”_ _  
_ He blinked, jaw hanging open. “What- what do you mean Nod’s gone, where did you take the kids?”

“ _ No, not the world, the- the kid, Nod, my Nod! They’re gone, I don’t know where they are, I can’t feel them, someone took them! Someone’s got them somewhere, what if they’re scared, what if they’re hurting them, I looked everywhere, everywhere-” _

“Okay, Pete? I need you to stay calm for me. Where are the teenagers?”

_ “Pizza Rat took them on a tour or something, I don’t know.” _

“Okay, find them, and all of you meet me in the train station, I’ll be right outside. And Pete? If Nod was hurt… something would be wrong with the world… you would know, okay? They’re fine.”

_ “Okay,”  _ Pete breathed, “ _ I’m sorry, I just… I’ve been looking and looking and I couldn’t- I can’t-” _

“No need to apologize. Is everyone okay right now?”

_ “Yeah, yes, everyone’s fine.” _

“Okay. Pete? I will meet you there.”

“ _ Okay…” _

Kingston hung up the phone and urgently jammed it in his pocket.

“What’s going on?” asked Rowan.

“Change of plans. We’re going to the train station.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fabian and Kristen talk in the land of dreams about Adaine, who seems to have some mysterious connection to and love for New York. Fabian talks on the phone with Riz, and reflects for a moment on how they're both coping with their new surroundings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jeez you guys this fic is like 50 pages and i didnt even introduce any of the important stuff yet. if i actually maintain this (and dont get your hopes up) it is gonna be a DOOZY. aaaaaanyway. in case some of yall are atla fans and didnt notice, i released my first atla fic!! hooray!! go read that if youre interested, and dont forget to comment!! thanks babes, love ya ;)

In the land of dreams, Kristen, Adaine, and Fabian were underneath a sky almost entirely comprised of shimmering rainbow bubbles and stars against a backdrop of black. The ground below them was that of a merry-go-round fit for goliaths to ride on, enormous enough that one could set up a full picnic on the saddle of of the glittering blue seahorse. Gravity was meaningless, and flight tasted like butterscotch, quick and warm and effortless through the air. Iced cream cones shot through the sky like rockets, leaving trails behind them, up for the taking. The air smelled like smarties and honey and a memory from third grade. The sky glittered like something out of a brilliant scene from the wizard of Oz, and even looking upon it sparked in the heart an irresistible wonder and return to childhood. And Fabian was hanging back. 

He sat on the slowly spinning black horse, leaning up against the golden pole in its back, which was as thick as an ancient oak tree. Far above him, Adaine was having the time of her life. She twirled around in the air until she was dizzy, kicking bubbles and watching the glitter fall away, iced cream of at least 12 different flavors all over her face. Kristen appeared to be similarly enjoying herself, sticking iced cream to her shoulders to make her look like a supervillain, and turning red in her freckled face with laughter beside Adaine. He picked up on moments from Kristen, though, gaps in her revelry. Every once in a while she’d look over her right shoulder, as if to speak to someone, and her smile would fall. Tracker, Fabian thought. Tracker would love something like this - if she were here, Kristen would be laughing twice as hard, and most likely making out with her. 

Adaine always seemed to get her back on track, though. As a matter of fact, Adaine was euphoric. Fabian had never seen her so loose and free - usually she still had some anxiety about her posture, something to suggest that she felt she was wasting her time. Now though, she was absolutely unrestrained. She spiralled ungracefully up through the sky like a bottle rocket, throwing out her arms and legs and laughing, full grin across her face. She stood upside down on the chin of one of the horses and dove upward into a large bubble. As she went through the other end, the bits of glitter fell around her and, for a moment, wrapped around her. For half a second she seemed to wear a glittering ballgown, glitter in her hair illuminating her beautiful young face. It was an incredible sight - she looked almost regal, grace suddenly invading her posture in the way her hands lifted, and her shoulders lowered. When she opened her eyes, they glowed not with her usual blue, but with a dreamy purple that matched the glitter in her dress. But the next moment the glitter fell away, and her eyes went back to normal, and anxious, innocent, high school Adaine was back. Fabian saw in Kristen’s face that she caught the whole thing - he saw, too, that she didn’t know what to make of it either. 

Fabian pulled a leg into his chest. He didn’t like this place - the city, the dream world, none of it. How the others were so eager to get involved with this outrageous nonsense when he’d been fully killed without putting up a fight blew his mind. The memory sent a shiver down his spine. It had never been like that before - he always at least felt  _ something  _ happening, had some chance to rebuke it. This was instant. One icy touch and he was just… gone. Gone somewhere, gone nowhere. Powerless. The concept made his face go pale and lead him to curl up against the metal pole. Totally powerless. 

He looked almost bitterly at the other two - having a blast, not even thinking about any of that. Gorgug and Fig would be doing the same thing if they were here, he thought. Fig would be ripping a sick baseline and popping as many bubbles as she could. Gorgug, on the other hand, would sit politely on the head of one of the horses and finish his cone of iced cream, flashing that wide, tusked smile of his. The certain knowledge of this made him ache. They would be having a blast too, and the only reason they weren’t was because they didn’t look  _ human enough.  _ Despicable. Part of him hoped that the next city they visited was filled with sharp-toothed green people and demons, just to make it reasonably fair. 

Riz would hate this, he thought, and smiled. Oddly enough, that was a comfort. It was usually a comfort to hang around the other person in the group who tended to be strictly anti-shenanigans. He could just picture him now, throwing up his arms in that way he did when he was frustrated.  _ This is ridiculous!  _ he’d say,  _ You literally got killed five seconds in and everybody’s flying around on bubbles and stuff!  _ Fabian smiled a little wider, trying to imagine his friend sitting cross legged across from him. Then, Fabian would say:  _ I know, right, The Ball? We have to be more careful here, and we should be thinking of ways to get back home.  _ Then Riz would light up and say,  _ I actually collected a bunch of clues about that. So, here’s what’s up…  _ He’d then tell him about all of…. well, the clues. Fabian wished he could roleplay that part to himself, but it was unfortunately, far beyond his reach. 

“You’re muttering to yourself.” 

Fabian looked up to see Kristen standing in front of him on the red plastic of the massive saddle. She smiled knowingly, that saintly look in her eye replacing her usual awkward brashness. “Are you like, trying to imagine what the other guys would say, too?”  
Fabian smiled, embarrassed. “Well,” he whispered, “I was just… trying to imagine what Riz would say because when I think like Riz I… I know about… clues and stuff.”  
“Last time you tried to think like Riz, you ate glass,” Kristen laughed.

“Okay, I didn’t eat glass, we’ve been over this, a little bit got in my mouth, and I couldn’t even see it, it- it’s glass, it’s literally invisible, so, you know, it  _ happens,  _ Kristen, it  _ happens!”  _

Kristen shut her eyes and put up her hands. “Hey, I’m not judging!” she assured him. She sat down in front of him, cross legged. “I wonder what shape Fig would be in right now,” she said wistfully.

“She’d probably be trying to shapeshift into Pizza Rat or something!” he claimed, gesturing excitedly, “And Gorgug would probably just be having the iced cream, to be honest, he doesn’t strike me as a flying around sort of guy.”  
“No!” agreed Kristen, “No, he’d probably just be hanging out. Maybe play some drums with Fig,” she thought. She leaned over and put her head in her hand, staring out at the bubbles. “Oh, I bet Tracker would have loved this…” she sighed. Fabian cast her a sympathetic look, but said nothing. He raised an eyebrow.

“How many times do you think Gilear would have died if we’d brought him?” he asked.

“I would put it at a solid five,” Kristen answered, deadpan. 

Fabian laughed, and nodded. He stared out at Adaine, who didn’t seem to notice that Kristen was gone, still twirling and spinning between the bubbles and the iced cream rockets. He cocked his head at her. “Adaine seems to be having… a really good time,” he brought up suspiciously.

“Yeah, I was noticing that,” Kristen said, giving him a wide eyed look, “You think this has to do with the her oracle stuff?”  
“I mean, probably, a bunch of… weird shit happens when you’re the oracle,” Fabian said, with a dismissive hand gesture, “Still, it’s weird. Like, she seems to know _a lot_ about this city and doesn’t want to tell us _anything._ Like she was getting all weird in the train, what was that about?”

“Yeah, that was _something,_ like seriously, who pissed in her cheerios?”  
“Right?” Fabian sympathized. He shook his head. “I don’t know, she’s acting weird. And did you see that glitter thing?”

“Where her eyes went purple, yeah.”

“I’m not a spellcaster, what does that mean?”  
Kristen shook her head helplessly, letting out a slow sigh. “At a guess?” she said, “Probably means she’s pulling magic from the city instead of like, her own supply.”

“I thought that was a Warlock thing.”

“It is.”

With a  _ thud,  _ the muscular form of Ricky Matsui landed a few feet from Adaine and Fabian. He started in immediately with his camp-counselor-esque gestures and tone. “Hey guys, how we all doing?” he asked, rubbing his hands together, “Taking a little break, that’s cool, it’s good to take breaks, both for emotional and physical health. Anyway, I just got a text on my phone from my friend Sofie who said your friends would like to talk to you somehow, so she asked if I would let you guys text with our phones and I, of course, said yes!” He took his phone out of his pocket, and smiled. “Make sure you’re taking turns now. I’m gonna go call down your friend Adaine.” He handed Fabian his phone, and leapt up into the sky. Immediately, the two teens huddled around the cell phone. They read the last 3 texts:

**Sofie:**

**Hey Ricky, the kids on my end want to reach their friends, mind giving them your phone so they can chat for a bit? Thx!!**

**Ricky:**

**No prob.**

**Sofie:**

**Hey guys its Riz. You all ok?**

Fabian grinned, as did Kristen, exchanging an eager look. Fabian quickly messaged him back:

**we’re doing fine! im sorry u cant come, but dont worry youd hate it. do you want to call us?**

Barely a pause before the text returned:

**Sofie:**

**Hell yea.**

And a call came in from Sofie Bicicletta. Fabian hit the green button just as Adaine landed, somewhat flustered, behind them. 

“Hi guys!” she exclaimed, “This place is awesome!”

“Shh!” Kristen hushed, “We’re calling the other bad kids!”  
Adaine’s face lit up, and she scurried over to the phone. 

_ “Hey guys!”  _ a voice came from the other end.

“The Ball!” Fabian delighted, “How’s Sofie’s house, you guys throwing a sick party without us?”

“ _ No,”  _ came the voice of Fig, and she sounded irritated, “ _ I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s super nice and everything, but it’s still some racist bullshit that we don’t get to go to the crazy dreamworld just because we don’t look like humans!” _

“I agree honestly,” said Kristen, “Don’t worry though, you’d hate it.”

_ “Really?”  _ came Gorgug’s soft voice.

The three bad kids in the dream world then made a big show of pretending that the dreamworld was the worst place they’d ever been, chaotic, disgusting, disappointing, unattractive, and slimy. The three on the other end of the line, of course, didn’t believe a word of it, but found it pleasing to hear nonetheless. 

“What are you all up to?” Adaine asked.

“ _ We’re thinking about sneaking out,”  _ whispered Fig. 

_ “We’re not sneaking out!”  _ Riz spoke up, “ _ We just… had some dinner, watched a movie. Surprisingly normal night, and now I guess she thinks we’re gonna go to sleep? I don’t think she’s gotten the concept that we’re all the same age, because she made a point of getting me extra blankets but just sort of told Gorgug he could make something for breakfast if he woke up earlier than she did, so…” _

_ “Yeah, she kind of thinks Riz is like, five.” _

Kristen raised her eyebrows. “I mean, if you’re raised around nothing but humans, I guess I can get from the size…” she admitted. 

Fig spoke up righteously. “ _ It’s still bullshit, which is why we should sneak out! _ ”

“ _ That sounds like a really bad idea,”  _ Gorgug admitted.

“Agreed!” said Fabian, “These people are nuts, you don’t want to bother with them!” 

_“Yeah, if you say so…”_ _  
_ After a few minutes of strange conversation Adaine took off again and Kristen followed to keep an eye on her, and Fig wandered off to sulk, and Gorgug went quiet. Both Riz and Fabian took the phones off speaker, and talked in hushed tones, Fabian against his metal pole and Riz nestled under unfamiliar downy quilts hearing the rain slow against the windows in the dark. 

“ _ Do you really think we’d hate it?”  _ Riz asked, half joking.

“In all honesty, I think Fig and Gorgug would get a kick out of it, I think _you’d_ hate it.”  
Riz laughed with a sputter. “ _Why?_ ” he asked, voice high pitched and defensive.

“Well, you like things that make sense,” Fabian explained, “You’d… try to look for clues and stuff here and just end up working in circles ‘cause nothing makes any sense. You look at something one way and it’s one thing, then you turn around and look back and it’s another, you’d have to rewrite all your notes, you’d hate it, trust me.”

“ _ That does sound like something I’d hate,”  _ Riz admitted. A certain softness ran through his voice, a pleasant insecurity. “ _ I can’t seem to figure out what’s going in the real world, let alone wherever it is you are. There seems to be magic and different races but different from ours somehow. It’s almost as if the different magical races are… stratified, somehow. Then again, some also don’t seem to exist. They mentioned knowing about fairies but were confused at the prospect of a goblin or an orc. I also noticed them saying that we seem to be something out of fiction, did you notice that? It’s like we’re accessible to certain people, maybe people who misinterpret us as just like, an idea for a book or a movie or whatever.” _

Fabian smiled. There were those clues. “Yeah, that is weird,” he agreed, “For the record, there doesn’t seem to be anything like  _ us… here.  _ It’s all sort of… uhh, augmentations on what exists in this world, fantastical creatures and what not. Nothing like, you know, any part of Spire I’ve seen.”

“ _ Mm. That does rule some things out, _ ” Riz said sternly. His tone then changed slightly, the tenderness returning in subtle notes along his harsh diction, “ _ Kind of bullshit that I couldn’t go with you guys. _ ”

Fabian sighed. “Oh, don’t take it personally,” he whispered, “We’ll… figure something out, we always do. You’ll… solve the mystery and we’ll just… plane shift back, easy as that.”

There was a hopelessness in Riz’s voice. “ _ This isn’t another plane, Fabian, _ ” he told him grimly, “ _ This is something else. I don’t have any idea where we are. It’s like… another world. _ ” When Fabian didn’t answer, Riz went on, even softer than before. “ _ Hey, how are you? _ ” he said.

Fabian was startled for a moment. Riz never asked that and meant it - it was an opening to talk about feelings,  _ anyone’s  _ feelings, something he couldn’t stand doing. Fabian’s jaw wagged helplessly for a moment. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“ _I mean you died,_ ” Riz said bluntly, “ _And Adaine said you didn’t even get to do anything about it. You’re… Fabian, guy who fights with stuff. And you… didn’t get to fight stuff. Just kinda sounds like it would suck for you, that’s all._ ”  
With a heavy breath, Fabian swallowed, and looked down at the ground. To his surprise, tears were welling in his eyes. If Ragh were here, he would be telling him it was alright to cry, and to be afraid - but Ragh wasn’t here either. “I mean… yeah,” he eventually said, “But that doctor guy brought me back with some crazy lightning magic, so, you know, no harm done.”

“ _ Dude, I don’t mean to pry, but did you like, go somewhere? Where do half-elves go when they… you know, bite it? _ ”

Fabian froze, a coldness gripping his chest. He thought back to the dreamless sleep that took place between the feeling of a hand on his skin and the exhilaration of power running through his body and kicking his heart back into action. The breathlessness, the falling. The moments where he felt his past, his being, his consciousness fraying at the edges like a tapestry in a den of moths. The nothing itching to take him. Not Hell - he could handle Hell - at least then he’d see his father again, maybe get a position on his ship. It was nothing. He was headed nowhere. “ _ I… _ ” he began, and quickly lost the words. 

Before he could go on there was a tremendous  _ slam  _ of boots against plastic as Pete the Plug landed several feet away from Fabian. He swelled with uncontrollable purple light, seeping out of his eyes and twitching around his fingertips. His fists were balled and his face perfectly stoic - his eyes were puffy and red. Upon the impact of his shoes there was a colossal, though silent wave of every bubble in the ever-stretching sky popping in sequence, glitter fluttering down into the black abyss until nothing but stars were left behind. Pete rolled his shoulders back, plastic of the saddle beneath him bending and shifting in color where he stood, stars twinking into cigarette buts and firing guns and curious eyes before blinking into stars again. Unreality surrounded him. The furious King of the realm spoke with a thousand phantasmal voices.

“Nod’s gone,” he declared, voice rough, “We’re going to the train station to meet with Kingston. Ricky, get the kids and meet me there.” Without waiting for a note of approval he leapt up and jumped off the side of the saddle into the darkness, and disappeared into starlight long before he could hit the distant ground.    
  



	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete meets back up with Kingston and they form a plan to find Nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> itty bitty chapter today gang. but! things should be taking off PRETTY soon so :eyes: stay tuned!
> 
> leave a comment if you enjoyed!!

The 9PM train rushed and rattled by along the crowded metro station. 

“Well, they have to be somewhere,” Kingston was comforting. Pete, at the moment, was still fuming, eyes puffy but tearless, hands balled up into fists. Kingston’s hands were up, attempting to soothe him. “Luckily our little group here has a pretty extensive knowledge of the world around us. I’ll see what I can do getting people to look for them in the waking world, and I’m sure Rowan wouldn’t mind checking out faery.”

“Why would they be  _ there?”  _ spat Pete.

“Well, at the moment, all we know is they’re not in Nod, so we might as well just start checking everywhere. Kug can run some rumors on the streets. Hell, if we need to we can ask Sofie to barrel into Heaven again, she loves doing that shit.”

Pete gritted his teeth, and then glanced at the three teenagers, looking curiously around the underground tunnel. “What do we do with  _ them?” _

Ricky spoke up. “I don’t really have a lot of… street smarts, like Kug and Kingston, but I mean, I have a pretty nice apartment,” he said, and shrugged, “I’ll take them for now.”

Fabian tuned into the conversation at that point. “What?” he demanded, “You guys can’t just keep stowing us places, you guys wouldn’t know this, but on our planet, we’re a _pretty big deal.”_ _  
_ “Yeah, we saved the world like, twice. Let us help find your friend… kid… realm,” Kristen encouraged, “Sorry, maybe I missed something, who’s Nod?”

Adaine answered, perhaps too fast, “They’re the personified version of the realm of dreams.”  
All the adults looked at her for a moment, Pete reeling back. “I… didn’t tell her that.” There was a moment of drawn out pause, until Kingston shook his head. 

“Alright, well, we’ll address that later,” he said with a pointed finger, “Now I’m not doubting your capability, but the fact of the matter is there is something in our world that you are very vulnerable to. Fabian, I don’t want to dredge up anything, but you seem like a touch kid and it took you out in one swing.”  
“Okay, it didn’t _take me out,”_ Fabian said, a blush coming to his cheeks, “He caught me on a surprise attack, okay? Everyone knows surprise attacks don’t count.”  
Kristen snickered. “I’m telling Riz you said that.”  
“Wh- y- you know what I meant! I didn’t mean-”  
“ _Excuse_ me,” Kingston said again, his voice seeming to hush the crowd around them for a moment. “Kugrash and I are going to look for Nod in our world. Since it doesn’t make sense to try and get all of you to Staten Island this late, you’ll stay with Ricky in his apartment and Sofie will stay with the rest of your friends. Rowan will search in faery, and Pete will search in Nod. And you’re all going to get some sleep.”  
The three teenagers pouted and muttered to themselves, but somehow seemed unable to argue with his stern tone. Kingston then put a hand on Pete’s shoulder and said, “You’ll find him, Pete.” Pete softened, swallowed, and nodded. He headed back towards the next train to Nod.

“Alright guys!” Ricky said, “Let’s go get some shut-eye, shall we?” He began walking through the crowd. It was thick enough that they saw only a puff of Fabian’s white hair and a flash of Kristen’s tie-dye shirt to confirm that they were still following as they made their way up the steps. Rowan and Kingston entered a conversation, and Ricky, facing forwards, began rambling about the importance of sleep on mental and physical health. Fabian and Kristen rolled their eyes. But not Adaine.

Adaine was slipping through the doors of the metro to Nod just before they closed on Pete, sliding invisibly into one of the gum covered seats and watching him fall against the back of the seat. She looked once more out the window behind her at the silhouettes of her friends, before the train was up and moving. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kristen and Riz both have strange dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys uh yuo guys arentnt readin g myh gradutition ficcs i needd vadliidation p[leasse
> 
> just kidding im not crying but i DO think you should read it bc its pretty fun. that said! thanks for showing up to this next chapter, as usual fellas!! leave a comment, check out the rest of my work

Kristen had a dream that night.

She was in a forest. Not the Nightmare forest. The trees were gnarled, unnatural shapes and got fuzzy near the top, like a bad picture TV. The ground below her was fog with nothing underneath it. The air tasted wrong. She took hold of her staff and then began walking.

Above the tops of the trees, some ways away, was a woman. She was at least twenty feet tall, with all black hair and all black skin, not a pleasant brown but raven black, and reflecting light from unknown, unseeable light sources. When she breathed or shifted, color burst forth, a sudden flash of neon blue, a zip of burgundy, explosive flickers appeared and then faded all over her body. She was turned away, and her hair went all the way down her back. Her arms were propped out, set up against her knees where she sat. 

Then, there was a horrible, resonant crack as her shoulders jutted backwards, her arms spun and her hands twitched into place until Kristen realized that she was no longer looking at the back of her, but the front, her arms now placed gently in front of her instead of behind. Her entire face was still covered in black hair. 

Kristen swallowed. The woman was difficult to look at, constantly shifting like it took work to keep her there. The look of her was unsettling in a way that Kristen couldn’t explain. She wanted to see her face. More so than usual, she realized, as she watched her mass of hair fall over her skin. It ate at her like bugs under her skin, what did she  _ look  _ like under there?

The great woman breathed loudly. “Kristen,” she said. Her voice was impossibly deep, and rang throughout the trees. “Heed my words. I have two children. One, who embodies me. And one, who seeks to destroy me.”

“Whoa…” breathed Kristen. “Is this like… a riddle or something like that?”

“It is… a suggestion.” The woman spoke slowly, and Kristen noticed then that her breathing was labored and her back was arched. She was struggling. “Find me, Kristen. Before it is too late.”

Kristen sprung awake on Ricky’s couch in the pitch dark. 

Riz had a dream too.

His scenery was a bit less interesting, with an all white ground and nothing but white forever and ever around him, excluding a single New York park bench that was right beside him. He was more in control than he usually was in dreams. Riz almost never dreamed, and when he did, they were nightmares, and when he had nightmares it was usually some variation of being possessed or a puppet or out of control in some way or another. The ability to move his hands and see them actually move was already startling. 

“Um, hey.” Someone spoke up beside him. He looked over. There, standing on the other side of the park bench, was a very ordinary looking person. They wore dress pants and a pastel button up shirt - they had fairly standard proportions, perhaps a bit shorter than most with thinner shoulders and gentler fingers - their hair was straight, and shoulder length brown, hanging partway in front of their eyes. Their eyes, Riz noticed, were the only interesting thing about them. They glower a soft lilac. The person smiled shyly at him. “You… must be Riz. Hi, I’m Grace. Nice to meet you.” They held out a well-manicured, pale hand. Riz just stared at it, taking in his surroundings. Meeting someone in a dream was never good - which, of course, was all the more reason to play his cards right.

“Hi…” he said carefully. He shook their hand. To his surprise, he made real contact with it, briefly experiencing the figment’s clammy touch. “I’m… dreaming right now, aren’t I?”  
They nodded. “Uh, yeah,” they said bashfully, “I’m sorry to jump in on you like this, it’s rude to just, you know, barge into people’s dreams but um… I-I-I wanted to talk to you. About your friends.”

“You… know about my friends?” Riz asked suspiciously, “You’ve been watching us?”

Grace only looked more embarrassed, cheeks going pink. “Yeah, um, I’ve just been keeping informed about your presence. You know, standard reports. You’re not exactly from around here. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that… It’s just, um… I’ve been doing some research about it and I’m making some strides but that’s not important, really I just wanted to… apologize.”  
Riz took a moment to soak all that in. So they were noticed… he should have assumed. None of them should have been out and about at all. “Wh… why, why do you want to apologize?”  
They sighed, wincing. “Oh, this is awkward,” they chuckled, “I, um, have been getting some of my assistants from kind of a… rambunctious culture. Also, I think, maybe sometimes a little bit… xenophobic. You know how it is. Anyway um… technically speaking it was one of my, erm, cronies, I guess, who… briefly, killed your friend Fabian.” Riz hardened, and Grace scrambled. “B-but I didn’t give the order, and he’s just fine now! I really, I need to get a better hold on them, I know.”

“Why would your people kill Fabian if you didn’t hate us?” Riz said sharply, anger getting away from him, “They follow you, don’t they, what’s that say about you?”

Grace’s chin wagged. “Look,” they admitted, “I’m just a person, like you. I don’t really get the cream of the crop if you know what I’m talking about. These guys would work for cheap. And… pretty rapidly they’re getting sick of me and forming their own… little group. I’m not exactly the best at getting people to listen to me…”  
“Yeah, well, why don’t you get a little better control over them?” Riz snapped, “You almost killed my best friend.”

Grace paused. They creased their eyebrows. “He’s _your_ best friend?”  
Something about their tone made Riz’s hackles go up even in a dream. “Yes, he’s my best friend,” he said defensively. Grace put their hands up.

“I- I’m sorry- I’m sorry, that was so rude of me, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, I can see that much,” they said, “I won’t bother you anymore but um… I didn’t actually just come to say sorry. I’m not super good at um… you know, confrontation? So, you know, usually I’d avoid this sort of thing but in this case it was a little time sensitive.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Um… I mean that… Oh, God this is embarrassing.”

 _“What?!”_ _  
_ “I mean that one of my guys is at it again and you’re gonna want to wake up, like, _now!”_

That ‘now’ was louder than anything Riz had heard so far and he was jolted out of a sound sleep, and as if by thread his head was pulled to face Fig’s bed, where a dark figure was looming over her with its hand extended. His pupils becoming thin slits he pulled the gun from under his pillow and fired twice. The blast woke the whole neighborhood, vibrating throughout the house. The bullets created craters in the drywall. Gorgug snorted and sat rigidly up. Fig was totally still.

A square of blackness appeared behind the figure in the darkness, and as they went to fall back through Gorgug leapt from his covers, took up his axe from beside his bed, and jumped for it. Riz cried out, “Gorgug, don’t!” but at that point he had already disappeared after the figure through the dark portal, and the portal was gone.    
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fig is narrowly saved from the attempt on her life, and Riz comes to a harrowing conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS DO YOU KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!!!!
> 
> THIS FIC JUST HIT ONE!!! HUNDRED!!! COMMENTS!!! *airhorn noises airhorn noises airhorn nosies*
> 
> I truly never thought this day would come about ANYTHING I made, and I cannot thank any of you enough!! I'm so happy this fic has taken off, and I'm so glad that truly SO MANY of you have gotten something out of it!! I can't wait to write more for you folks - it's you people that make creativity easy! Thank you all a thousand times, you've been more than wonderful
> 
> sincerely, your old friend, mr. cleams

Riz leapt up from his bed. He had two very different problems in front of him. Fig was gone and Gorgug was gone, likely to be killed as well. Choosing between friends was always a nightmare, but Fig was in the room with him, he thought logically, so it’d have to be her.   
He pulled his first aid kit out of his pocket and then knelt beside her. Her pulse was weak. That said, exactly what had happened to her was unclear. There were no bruises, no cuts, no signs that she had been attacked in any way - even if she’d been poisoned, there’d be little signs, discolorations and smells to pick up on. But there was nothing - nothing to fix, nothing to do. She was just dying. 

Riz knelt helplessly in front of her, breathing hard. “Shit,” he whispered. “Um…” He scrambled around in his first aid kit - bandages, tourniquets, painkillers, a few other tools. Unhelpful, unhelpful! He looked at her again. She was barely breathing at all, her chest taking on the steady nature of a corpse. In a panic, Riz recalled who he was here with. His memory was failing him - what was the woman, a fighter? No, a monk. Unhelpful. What was the rat?

His question was answered by the door bursting open, a nightgowned Sofia masking the piercing light from the hallway as Kugrash slipped into the room between her legs. In a second he was leaning over Fig and placing a hand on her chest, and the light of a headlight in the rain burst from his fingertips joined by the acidic smell of cigarette butts in this haunting druidic spell. A moment later, Fig gasped, her eyes snapping open.

Riz nearly collapsed with relief. “Oh, thank God,” he whispered.

“What happened here?” growled Kugrash.

“She was attacked,” Riz answered, somewhat out of breath, “I don’t know how, I just saw a figure looming over her. But the second I saw it it disappeared through a portal, and Gorgug followed it. He’s gone. They both are.”

Kugrash took a moment to react to that news, looking up to Sofie, who looked concerned. “Did you see where it went?”

Riz shut his eyes, thinking hard. It was all so fast. “Somewhere… black,” he said. He looked into the replay of the portal again, trying to make out anything within it. He saw something… a sparkling, like the moon on water. “Something sparkling. I’m sorry, I didn’t see much.”   


“Sparkling…” repeated Kugrash thoughtfully, “Well, not much sparkles in Hell, let’s hope he’s not there. That sound like Heaven, Sof?”

She bit her cheek, and then shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “Either way, we should probably just deal with Isabeth for now, make sure she’s alright.”

“ _ Fig…” _ _   
_

Everyone looked over to the source of the tiny, croaking voice. Fig, pale faced and terrified, shut her eyes tight in a wince, and when she opened them her eyes were glassy with tears. Her voice cracked. “I’m called Fig,” she said. She looked up at Riz. “I’m sorry... I lied.”

“It’s okay, Fig, it’s fine. It’s all gonna be fine, see, you’re okay.”  
She nodded, and swallowed. Then she looked around. “Where’s Gorgug?”

Riz’s face fell.

“Your buddy fell through some kind of portal,” said Kugrash, “He went after the thing that attacked you. We don’t know where he is, but we’re gonna find him.” After giving her a quick, comforting pat on the shoulder he turned to Sofie. “We need to get the others,” he said, “Start looking for this kid.”

Sofie pulled out her phone, tossing it to him. “Start texting them, I’m gonna watch over these guys.”   


Kugrash nodded, and then scurried back out of the room with her phone in hand. 

Cautiously, Riz helped prop Fig up against the foot of her bed. He held her hand in his, watching her exceedingly carefully. She was very hurt and very pale, but she would live. As she began to get herself together, she irritably wiped her tears. Suffice to say she still looked morose, but then, so did Riz.

“Alright, you guys, we’re gonna get this figured out,” said Sofie, “You guys want some cocoa or something, coffee?”

“Just a moment alone,” requested Riz lowly. 

Sofie looked pained for a moment - not in offense at the comment, but in the helplessness of her position. There was nothing she could tell these children to make this any better. Nevertheless, she forced another smile, a soft one, almost motherly. “Can do,” she whispered, and left them alone in the room.

Fig looked to Riz. “Is Gorgug really gone?” she asked.

Riz gritted his teeth, looking down. “As of… right now, yeah,” he said, “But he… he got his axe before he went, so you know that he can take care of himself. He’ll be fine. We’ll find him.”  
She nodded carefully, and seemed to believe him. “What got me?” she asked, “Was it the thing that got Fabian?”

“I don’t know, I barely saw it,” Riz confessed, “I was lucky to wake up when I did.”

Fig laughed. “ _ I  _ was lucky you woke up when you did,” she said frankly, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Riz.”

He smiled meekly, and then shrugged. “Oh… thanks,” he said sweetly. Fig looked a little better now, the color coming back to her face. In response, Riz’s voice dropped the slim line of emotion he’d maintained, going back to its usual, logical self. “What did it feel like? Do you remember anything?”  
Fig had to think about that, putting her hand up to her head and scrunching up her hair. With the memories came a look of distress. “I was… dying,” she said, “Which just sort of felt… I mean, it felt like it did the last time. But I didn’t… I idn’t see my dad, I didn’t see Gorthalax.”

Riz creased his eyebrows. “Hm,” he said, “Different Hells. We really are far from home,” he concluded. But Fig shook her head.

“I didn’t go to Hell.”

“Where did you go?”

The fear rose up in her eyes the more she spoke. “I don’t think I was… going anywhere. I was just like… unraveling, I guess. Like everything just fell away. You guys pulled me back at the last second but I think…” she thought for a few more seconds, and then turned to Riz, who had a puzzled look on his face, staring at the ground. “Did you come up with something?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t…” Riz said, shaking his head, and then asked, “Fig, do you know… where a half-elf would go when they died? If they weren’t devoted to any God in life?”

Fig thought about that for a moment. “Well, Gilear never worshipped anyone, and he always told me elves would be in Galacaia’s domain. And I’m… pretty sure humans would be sorted into Heaven or Hell. Why?”

Riz considered that a little more. Fabian didn’t hide much, especially when he was successful somehow. Even when he wasn’t, he did love to complain. Already he had done so, going on rants about ‘weird electrical shit’ and ‘crazy doctor stuff’, but nothing about where he’d gone. He could hear the way he spoke now and he knew he should have heard  _ something.  _ He’d been to Hell, and that was by far the most disturbing of the three - the other two should have been another feature of his rambling complaints. But it was worse than Hell - it must have been. Why would he hide it?

Unless there was nothing -  _ nothing  _ to hide. 

Suddenly a chill ran down Riz’s spine. “Fig…” he said nervously, “I think if we die here, we’re gone.”

Fig creased her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, think about it. We’re not from this… this plane, this realm, whatever you wanna call it. You and Fabian both almost died, and neither of you were able to mention anything about where you were going.” He looked down at the ground, horror in his green eyes, “I think maybe… we don’t go  _ anywhere  _ if we die. Just… no more us.”

Fig took a moment to take this in, taking her eyes off of Riz and staring at the closed door. She shivered like she was cold, and then curled up, hugging her own arms. She reached up and clutched Ayda’s feather. “We gotta get home, Riz,” she said insistently.

“Yeah,” Riz breathed, raising his eyebrows, “And fast.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gorgug is transported to a strange world in the dead of night, and begins plummeting into a sparkling river below him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dang this ones getting LONG huh. anyway heres a cute little chapter as a birthday gift to myself. its m birthday you guys!! i am not [REDACTED] years old.
> 
> hey. hey guys. guess what i want for my birthday
> 
> v a l i d a t i o n
> 
> leave a comment yall!!

Gorgug waited for the ground to hit, for his axe to collide with the flesh of the man who’d hurt Fig, but he had no such luck.

As a matter of fact, the first thing he noticed when he leapt through the portal was a sickening switch from horizontal to vertical - nausea gripped him as he found he was no longer propelling himself forward, but shooting downward like a cannonball. Wind whipped through his hair, and his lungs ached for air. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he looked below him. The man was gone. 

He was somewhere where the night was a rich blue, with more stars than he had ever seen in this world or his own. Lights twinkled below in strange colors for the windows of buildings, and down below was a river that sparkled more than any he had ever seen, brilliant whites and pastel purples. He looked up to see the source of the light, a perfect, clear white full moon. It was silhouetted, only for a moment, by a figure with sharp-edged, polygonal wings. Then, the wings beat, and it took off. 

Though it felt as though he was looking up for no more than a second or two, by the time he looked down he must have been feet from the water. He scrambled in the air. Shit, shit  _ shit!  _ With nothing left to do he braced himself for impact, held his axe until his knuckles went white, and fell in. 

Gorgug could tell within the first five seconds of falling in - this wasn’t water. It sucked him down and pulled him along with the current like he was a drifting leaf, as opposed to an almost 300 pound teenager. It felt almost coarse against his skin, immediately getting into his eyes and staying like sand, and the force of it caused him to gasp in a lungful of it. Sharp, cold, sediment rushed into his chest and scratched up what felt like every part of his body on the way down - he’d felt as though he’d swallowed a desert. As he was rushed down the river, all he saw was purple and white, unable to breathe as more of the horrible dust shot into his lungs. It was easily the worst experience he’d had since arriving here. Soon the lack of air made his chest tighten and ache something horrible, and his head spin, and the purples and whites faded to black.

Gorgug blinked his eyes open. Then he shut them again. There was still sand in them. 

The first thing he noticed was that he must have been hanging upside-down. He felt a rope around his foot tugging on his joints, his arms dangling below him, blood filling up his head. He groaned, trying to rub his eyes. Then panic hit him. His axe! If he’d lost it in the river, he’d never get another one like it!

“It’s alive, everyone! Nay-sayers, pay up.” he heard a voice say - suave, and uncaring. There were a series of tiny groans and cheers coming from in front of him - tinier than usual, as if they came from tiny, tiny people. There was a clinking of coins like little bells. Gorgug knew they must have been talking about him.

He tried to speak, but instead of words there came out a painful spray of whatever dust had filled the river in a hacking cough. It was the oddest thing - by the time his coughing fit had ended, he almost felt as though gravity loosened up. Like the pull of the rope on his ankle wasn’t so strong. 

“Aww, there you go, big… thing,” the voice said, “Better out then in, eh? I don’t know what you are, but you’ve had about enough pixie dust to turn yourself into a blimp.”

Gorgug rubbed at his eyes again, desperate to see. Pixie dust? He finally scrubbed the dust away enough to blink his eyes open and see the scene before him. It was then that he realized that, oddly enough, he was not upside down at all. The rope attached to his foot was tethering him to the ground, which was colored in wildflowers he didn’t recognize. Standing far below him was a satyr (at least that was familiar) with blonde goat legs and a dark brown, bare chest, long dark hair falling in curls around its angular face. It was surrounded by fireflies. But no… fireflies weren’t that many colors. Looking closer Gorgug recognized a swarm of tiny pixies, flitting around and shooting him curious looks. 

He looked down on the ground to see that about a hundred of the little things had gathered around to try and lift the blade end of the axe, and by an inch or so, they were succeeding. 

“Hey, that’s-” he said, and his voice was course, and painful, “Don’t touch that, please, that- that’s mine.”

“It talks!” proclaimed the satyr. As it said that many of the pixies flocked over to him to investigate. It was only when they hovered almost immediately in front of his eye that he realized they were all dressed up in wild nightclub clothes, and that their wings were lined with different colored neon. 

One in a pink cocktail dress and a green boa landed on his shoulder, and squeaked out, “I think it’s kind of cute, Phineas. It’s like a demon but… sweeter eyes!”  
_Sweeter eyes?_ Gorgug thought with a wince. “Look I- who- who are you people?” Gorgug said, and had another brief coughing fit.

“I think a better question would be who you are, darling,” Phineas went on, putting their hands on their hips, “What are you, from Hell? How  _ charming,  _ I  _ love  _ it. And honey, not everyone can pull off a crop-top, but you’ve really got the abs for it.”   


Gorgug scowled, blushed, and forcefully pulled down his shirt as far as it would go, which wasn’t that much father than it was. “It’s not a crop-top, it’s too small!” he argued, and all the pixies giggled. He jerked their head away from them like a swarm of flies, “Can you get me down? That’s my axe, I have to get back to my friends.”

“This is  _ your  _ axe?” they asked, “Very impressive.”

He looked down at the axe, and noticed the glitter that surrounded him didn’t cover its hilt or its blade. Pixie dust must not have worked on objects, he thought. At least, not in so simple away. But that was his ticket. Making a strained effort not to cough again he shut his eyes and took in a long breath, filling his massive lungs, and then let it out slow, releasing a cloud of magical glitter. As he did so he began to sink a little closer to the ground. That would work - if he did it a few more times.

“Will you give us your name, sweet devil?” asked the pixie beside his ear.

“Gorgug,” he said.

“That’s an odd name.”

He wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he told her the truth, irritably. “It’s orcish,” he said. 

The satyr smiled wryly. “An orc?” they asked. “Is that some sort of demon?”   


Gorgug scowled, and tried to focus on breathing out again. He sank a few inches lower - almost close enough to reach the axe. “No,” he said sharply, “I’m just… a thing you guys don’t know about.”

“Ooh!” the satyr exclaimed, “Tell me, do they dance where you’re from?”

He rolled his eyes. “I guess? Look, do you know where we are?”   


They laughed. “Isn’t it obvious. You’re in fae, my child. Land of the faeries and ruled by the good Queen Rowan Berry herself.”

Gorgug’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he hovered a little more off the ground. “Wait, Rowan Berry’s queen? I know her!”   


The pixie laughed, now sitting down on his shoulder like it was a beach towel. “Do you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I need to get to her right away, I need to get back to Earth?”

The pixie and the satyr exchanged looks. “You must not know,” the satyr said, smiling at the ground. “You see, one does not simply  _ deny  _ a stay with the fair folk. Especially not after they’ve given us such a wonderful gift and sign of good faith!”

Gorgug blinked. “What did I- what did I give you?”   


“What’s your name, sweet devil?”

“I told you already, it’s…” Gorgug trailed off as his tongue was stopped by some unusual magical force. Oddly enough, he couldn’t remember. He dug deeper and deeper, but in the place where his name usually lied was nothing, nothing at all. He had no name. He looked in terror and confusion at the satyr. “Did you take my name?!” he demanded anxiously.

“Take, I didn’t take anything! You so graciously gave it!” the satyr said amicably, “But, of course, if for any reason you were to want it back… you would have to do as we wanted and treat us with your stay.”

Before Gorgug could answer, there was a sawing noise below him and the rope that tethered him to the ground was cut, before a hoard of glowing, giggling fairies took the end and began to haul him along the grass like a helium balloon. Angrily he scrambled for the ground, but it was no use - they carried him several feet above, and left his axe on the ground behind. “Hey, no wait, I - I have to get to my friends!”  
“In due time, sweet devil!” the satyr said, as it marched up ahead of him, “In due time!”  



	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adaine sneaks away with Pete into the realm of dreams to search for Nod, and takes an excursion to the library with an unexpected guest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! been a little bit since i updated this one but! i have a nice hearty chapter to make up for it! i may have gone......... a little out of control with the fanon lore with this one but! hopefully itll all pay off in the end. aaaaanyway i have been pouring out ace attorney fics by the BUCKETFULL so as soon as ao3 :) lets me :) post one shots again :) ill :) put :) those :) up :) for :) you:). come on ao3 i know my wifis trash but please.........................
> 
> alright kiddos, enjoy!!

The doors shut on the subway, and the final group of humans got off, leaving Pete alone in an empty train. The feeling would never stop being odd - nevertheless, he cast away the silence to soak up the rare silence of New York in droves. His hands were shaking - he fell into a seat, whole body tense. Nod was gone… where to, nobody could say. Grotesque images flashed to him - he found himself wondering if the grey child bled red blood, or if it was black, or blue. In his mind, they spilled a rainbow, crying out. Pete’s shoulders shook a little harder.

Beneath the violence was the little chirp of a canary in his mind, and Pete knew it’s little song all too well. It chirped in an intricate round its favorite song: _Coke, perks, xannies, crack, dope, juice, oxies, crystal. Drugs drugs drugs drugs drugs drugs._ He pulled his box of tic-tacs out of his bag and downed three without even tasting them.   
He looked across the subway train, comforted, at least, by the filthy seats and the year-old ads. He eyed the poles standing rigid in the middle, and the noticed something. A thin white mist fogging up the metal, just barely visible in the underground light. An oval - no, a _handprint._

Pete sprung to his feet, extended his arm, and out from his exploding fingers came a rippling blast of purple and pink and silver and gold, exploding into mystical flame as soon as it touched the air. With a  _ whoosh  _ it filled the car, charring the seats and the metal poles, creating a draft of hot air that smelled like pumpkin spice latte and car exhaust that pushed his hair away from his face. Then, when he withdrew his hand, the fire flickered out, curled away, and left the air. When the blast was gone, sitting with her back pressed up against the wall, was a wide-eyed, shaking, panting, elven teenage girl. 

It took a moment for the paranoia to leave Pete’s form, and when it did, irritation replaced it. “You,” he said harshly. 

Adaine didn’t seem entirely meek either, a shocked anger starting to filter in over her panic. “What… magic was that?!” she exclaimed, “Was that an eldritch blast?!”

“What are you doing here, you were supposed to get off the train with your little… friends!” exclaimed Pete, gesturing harshly. 

“I-I-I was going to, but then I… thought I would stay back. For the record, you just tried to kill me!” she said sharply.

Pete scowled. “Yeah, well, you’re the one sneaking around, okay?”

“Oh, sneaking around?”

“You- cast invisibility on yourself, so yeah, I’d call that sneaking around!”   


“Yeah, well I wouldn’t have to sneak around if you were a little nicer to us instead of hating us just because we’re from somewhere else,” Adaine said, crossing her arms. Pete leaned back indignantly

“Oh, don’t play that card, that’s so predictable. Look, I don’t hate you because you’re an alien, okay, I hate you because you’re teenagers. You give up selling drugs and you think ‘thank God, I never have to pretend to like a teenager again’, but look what life has in store for you!” he ranted, puffs of residual pink magic glittering off his form as he gestured. 

“Look, I’m not an alien, I’m an elf, and the elven oracle, actually, and if you knew what that meant you might listen to me!” Adaine said, warily getting to her feet. “I think I can help find Nod.”

All the childish anger in Pete’s form drained in a second, his shoulders sinking and his face going stark. “Wait, what?” he said, “What do you know about Nod, I thought you guys didn’t have Nod where you’re from.”

Adaine shook her head. “We don’t,” she admitted. She sighed. “Look, I… I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’ve had dreams. Dreams of New York, the world of dreams and the waking world. I’m… connected to this place somehow. You’re… what… is your role? Your magic, it’s… very odd.”

Pete nodded. “Yeah, I’m the Vox Phantasma, the voice of dreams,” he said lowly, “Kingston’s the Vox Populai, voice of the waking world. It’s like a… parallel thing. Yin and yang, you know?”   


“If you’re yin and he’s yang, what does that make me?”   


Pete thought about that. He squinted, and shrugged. “Yeng?”   


Adaine scowled. “No you can’t just - add another vowel, I’m asking like a deep, philosophical question. Look, anyone can- Look at me, I’m ‘yong’. Lot of problems solved there.”

“Ok, you are being  _ very  _ rude right now.” Pete said, raising his hands. 

As he said that the train clunked to a stop. There was a tense moment between them, before Pete went on sternly, “Last chance to go home.”  
“I can’t. I need to find them,” Adaine said intently.

Pete squinted. 

Adaine looked back, perplexed. “What?”

“I just kinda wanna know like… Do you, are you… Why do you wanna save Nod so bad?”

Adaine looked down softly. “I have dreams about New York,” she said earnestly, “I don’t plan to stop having them.”

Pete evaluated her for a moment, nodded, and then headed off the train.

Adaine was a bit young to have much oracle-y wisdom about her, but she did know one thing - When something was lost, it never hurt to check the library. As for whether or not Nod had a library at all, she couldn’t see. It seemed somewhat against their philosophies, all those books saying in concrete terms what was and what was not - then again, some people must have dreamt of books, right? 

Pete showed her to the library with less convincing than she expected (though she thought perhaps that was because he wanted rid of her, not because she’d have any luck). Adaine breathed in the air slowly, feeling like her lungs went numb in a way that was oddly pleasant. This entire place was like laughing gas. As Pete, in one moment, distractedly took off to search every corner of the land, a spinning, glittering umbrella hovered down just below Adaine. “Need a lift?” it asked.

“Yes, to the library, thank you very much!” she answered brightly, and stepped upon it. As soon as she did so, it stopped spinning and began to rise, shooting up into the air and flying out over all of Nod. She looked down at the shifting city, beautiful and intricate. If only Aelwyn and Jawbone could see me now, she thought. Jawbone probably would have found a hundred new ‘experiences’ to try (what they were she wasn’t quite brave enough to think about), and well, Aelwyn… Adaine pictured her sister, and as she did so, something began to manifest before her eyes. 

The glitter that always hung around in the air began to congeal piece by piece, the pieces turning a soft posit pink as they touched each other. Soon, there was a silhouette she knew well - her sister Aelwyn, in the dress she wore to prom. She looked dignified and radiant - the sister Adaine always sat around picturing when she was alone on rainy days. Then, the glitter began to fall off of her, revealing her pale skin and her long blonde hair, turning her dress matte pink and her nails perfectly done. All that remained were her eyes, which were composed completely of pink glitter, which drifted out of her eyes like lava lamp fluid, floating steadily back upwards out of her. 

Adaine stared, awestruck. “Aelwyn?” she asked. 

“Hello, little sister,” came Aelwyn’s voice, though it echoed around her head for a moment. She sprung up and then landed with butterfly softness beside her on the umbrella, and gravity fell onto her, her hair bouncing around her shoulders, her dress skirting her ankles. “You end up in a place like this and you’re going to the  _ library?  _ My, would it kill you to have  _ some  _ fun?”

Adaine gawked for a moment. This couldn’t be happening. She wanted it, but… no. She blinked. “You… I dreamt you,” she concluded, “This place made you real because I was thinking about you. You’re all in my head.”  
“Well. Obviously,” Aelwyn said sharply. 

“R-right…” Adaine swallowed, and looked away. Of course she was - what else would the world of dreams do? Then again, it didn’t always feel good being right. “Well, if you want, you can stick around, just don’t get in my way or I’ll… wish you into a toad!”  
“Aww. Won’t it be sad when I still turn out prettier than you?” answered Aelwyn. 

Adaine scowled, but smiled, too. “Come on,” she said, “This must be the library.”

There, about twenty feet below their umbrella, were three shifting wheels each inside of each other, one spinning vertically, the next horizontally, and the final, diagonally. They were made of bricks and concrete, with text that seemed to be from a sign outside a library with a dignified font broken up along its edges, only occasionally forming the words “PUBLIC LIBRARY” when the wheels happened to line up. The umbrella hovered them down to the place just in front of it. With a whoosh the spinning round building passed by them and then came to a sharp halt, two grand red doors just in front of Adaine and Aelwyn. Adaine smiled. “Thank you, library!” she said. The library manifested a hand and a top hat, tipped it, and then the two disappeared. Adaine stepped through the doors.

Inside was not a building the way one would know it. Instead was a room with two triangular walls and a distinctly slanted roof. The floor below them was a perfect mirror, and the walls were covered in perfect black arial text. It smelled like old, old paper in there, and the second they went in the door vanished, turning the two triangular walls black, the two slanted walls maintaining their writing. It apparent, after a moment of thought, where they were - they were underneath a book the size of a whale, propped up to make room between its pages. Around them, books flapped around like idle birds - hundreds of them, on and on. Adaine sighed with wonder. How absolutely incredible - it was like something out of Narnia. Beside her, her sister stepped forward, and looked up.

“We’re in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” she announced, reading the headings near the back of the room. As soon as she said that, one fo the flying birds fluttered over to her, and opened up just in front of her. 

“I was just thinking about that book! You must appear under any book you’re thinking of!” Adaine said, fascinated, “This place is incredible!”  
Aelwyn grinned wickedly. “Library, show me Adaine’s diary!”  


Sure enough, with a flash of soft white light, the writing on the pages shifted from stark black text to neat pencil, with grey lines underneath the lines of text. Aelwyn laughed to herself as a cute blue journal flew into her hands. Adaine sputtered. “Library, show something else, please! And- don’t let her read that!”

The book fluttered back into the hoard, the text vanished, and there was more black writing. The heading said ‘The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein’.

“It can get any book that you want,” Adaine marveled, “I wonder if it can get any subject, too. Library - will you please tell me about New York City?”   


The walls turned from text into a map of the city of New York, and a heavy book flew to Adaine. It was titled - ‘A Comprehensive History Of New York City’. Adaine laughed. “Cool!” she exclaimed.

“Ugh, we can learn about New York in a  _ normal  _ library. It’s not as though it’s some mystical place. Remember how we’re  _ in  _ New York?” Aelwyn said boredly. 

Fair point, thought Adaine. “Alright… Library. Tell me about Nod.”

The walls transformed into a different map, this time, though similar. This time it was pink and purple instead of black and white, and the roads and turns seemed to change every time you looked away. A purple book with gold edges on the pages flew into Adaine’s hands. It was titled, simply, ‘Nod’. She sat down and opened it.

_ Nod is the sixth burrow of New York, and is the realm which is only accessible to humans within the Umbral Arcana (or the protective magic that conceals Nod and its incorporeal, super corporeal, or anti-corporeal counterparts) whilst asleep and through the process of dreaming. Nod is both a place and an entity. While many from the waking world struggle to understand the concept, one is not a representation of the other - they are both identical. The world of dreams is a mind of the entity Nod, and the entity Nod is the keeper of the world of dreams. All things which are created in Nod are in a state of flux - nothing ‘is’, in the traditional sense. When the magic of the world of dream solidifies into a single entity, it cannot remain in such a way, as the realm of dream is but one entity. _

Adaine looked up from her book. “So… you’re just like, a temporary form of raw dream magic manifesting as my sister? And you know what I just read because you’re… also the book?”   


“Yes, that’s about right,” Aelwyn answered. Adaine considered this for a moment.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she argued, “If you’re Nod… if  _ everything  _ is Nod, why don’t they know that Pete is looking for them? Moreover, how can an entity like that go missing at all? If we’re in their mind, why don’t they just turn any of the dream energy into the form of themself?”

“Because Nod is the dreamer, little sister, not the dream,” said Aelwyn, now sitting down and reclining lazily, scouring the map up above her, “There is a distinct difference between the two. Nod is the only one that can retain their oneness for long periods of time once outside the world of dream. Furthermore, they’re the only thing from Nod that, if you were to destroy it, would destroy all of Nod. If you were to destroy me, for instance, or this library, or anything else, it would just turn into glitter and then into something else.”

“Ah, I see,” Adaine said with a Nod, “Because we are inside Nod, they have to choose to be inside or outside. They can’t be in two places at once.” She thought a little longer, and then went on, “But that doesn’t answer my first question. This is their mind. How do they not know we want to find them and do… something? Surely they could cause a stir if they wanted to?”   


“Well, not, I can’t spell everything out for you, Adaine, think. Why would a dreamer not panic when they saw something strange?”  
Adaine’s eyes went wide. “They think it’s no more than a nightmare,” she said, “They don’t know it’s the real Pete.”

“Right on the money,” answered Aelwyn. 

“So that’s it then, isn’t it? We have to convince them it’s really him.”   


Aelwyn sat up. “Easier said than done, little sister,” she said, waggling a finger, “Nod may be the size of New York, but it’s also the size of a million billion worlds of Solace. Everything that could conceivably be dreamed is in here. I imagine Nod sees Pete do everything from trying to kill him to inventing a new type of airplane. If they’re not in enough danger to want to come back, they won’t come back. Simple.”

Adaine considered that for a moment. Certainly a problem. She looked up at the map, at the shifting roads and at the words that flickered too much to read, with pseudo-letters just like there were in dreams. At least she’d learned more about this world - she’d have to discuss the rest with Pete. 

Speaking of Pete…

“Library,” she said, “Would you teach me how the Vox Populai and the Vox Phantasma come about?”

The walls changed again, this time into a stunning display of stained glass. On the right was a painting in golds and browns and reds of a man with rich brown skin and black dreadlocks, and a long white coat. He had no face, but he held his hands up and out, as though welcoming a group of people. On the other side was a similar portrayal in pinks and purples and silvers and blues of a man with no shirt on wearing a cowboy hat. He was faceless too, with paler skin and a small smiley face painted on his wrist, and his arms were crossed over her chest. Adaine was bathed in both lights, and the looked through the glass to see that, from the side of the Vox Populai, was the setting sun, and from the side of the Vox Phantasma, was a bright full moon. The blue and gold light spilled over from both directions, but oddly, never touched. In front of her was a book with a gold front and a purple back. On the front, it said Vox Populai. She opened it, and read.

_ Chapter Two: The creation of the Vox Populai.  _

_ The Vox Populai, like the Vox Phantasma, has been a position for as long as humans have existed. Unlike the Vox Phantasma, however, their positions are decreed by their actions and their temperaments. The Vox Populai is, in fact, directly chosen by the people. The person who is most beloved by and committed to their community begins to attach their soul to it in a concrete, literal way, until, in a similar way to which Nod literally is the world of dreams, they begin to literally become their community. The Vox Populai is always a position for life because, by definition, the Vox Populai is incapable of willingly betraying their community. This is why these types of people appear so infrequently; their souls must be untaintable. If they would do wrong by their community for any reason whatsoever, they are not the Vox Populai. _

Adaine cocked her head. Kingston Brown - so that was why she knew him and asked for help. She knew New York, he was New York, so she knew Kingston Brown. He certainly did seem like a man with an untaintable soul. Understanding that much, Adaine flipped through the book seeking for some mention of the Vox Phantasma - but there was nothing. Confused, she flipped the book over. There, on the purple back, was the word Vox Phantasma - but it was upside down. She turned the book over, and opened it. Now, the text was rightside up, and completely different from what she had just seen. All of the sudden, this book was about the Vox Phantasma. She grinned - what an incredible place, she thought to herself. 

She read on:

_ Chapter Two: The Creation of the Vox Phantasma _

_ The means through which the Vox Phantasma comes about are quite unusual. Unlike the Vox Populai, their behavior in their youth as well as their soul has nothing to do with the process. The Vox Phantasma is, in fact, only partially human as it is, and only half corporeal. They are real enough to function in the waking world, but also unreal enough that they can bend the rules of reality the way that one might in the world of dreams, giving them impressive superhuman abilities to manifest the wishes of themselves or the people around them into the real world. The Vox Populai is literally half comprised of dream, with half of their being starting out in reality, and the other half being rooted in concept alone. _

“Half dream…” Adaine whispered. She went on reading, but soon enough the text had changed the subject. That couldn’t be all there was, was there? How did they come about - that didn’t answer her question at all. She squinted. “They don’t mean one of Pete’s parents is from the world of dream, do they? Making him, literally, half dream?”

“Don’t be outrageous, little sister,” Aelwyn spoke up, “Weren’t you listening? Dreams can only remain themselves for a short time. Not to be TMI, but I think even for a traditionally male set of parts, whatever ‘dream magic’ has to kick around in a woman for nine months and then stay around beyond would have long, long since faded away. Pieces of your parents stay with you, you know. Or didn’t you take biology? You could exactly have a child if half their DNA disappeared within a few days of conception.”

“Yes, well, then what do you suggest, it says he’s half dream!” Adaine said irritably, “What does that mean? Does it mean he’s Nod’s son? He didn’t seem to think of them as a father when I talked to him.”  
Adaine chuckled to herself. “Oh, Adaine,” she said, “Think in a bigger box, will you? Nod can dream, but they can’t bring those dreams outside their head. It can’t have been them.”

“Then… how can he be half dream?” Adaine mused aloud.

“Come now, Adaine, there’s only so much a figment of your imagination can do to help you,” she groused, “Now are we done in the library yet or what, this place is boring.”

Adaine thought hard for a few more moments, staring at the image of Pete through the mirror on the floor. Half of dream… literally, half dream… Something like that seemed to rule out any charms, incantations, spells, or anything of the like. He wasn’t enchanted, he was literally something else - something in his biology made him inhuman, according to this source. But nothing could do that - no dream could stick around that long, not even one of Nod’s making. So how could it have happened? How could he be half dream?

Well - some things weren’t one day problems, Adaine thought. Perhaps she’d bring it to Riz. He’d been stressed out, she was sure he’d love a new problem to pour over. She stood up from where she was. “Yes, I suppose we are…” she admitted. 

“Ugh.  _ Finally,”  _ Aelwyn sprung up to her feet, turned, and headed for the door. But Adaine lingered. Something was nagging at her. “Come on, what’s the matter?” Aelwyn asked.

“Just… one more thing,” she said. “Library… you can tell me anything I want… anything in the world, isn’t that right?”  
In response to that, the text on the wall turned tiny, and informational, and a spinning wheel of open encyclopedias hovered over to face Adaine. She supposed that was a yes. “Alright, well, I have one more question… Library, what am I?”  
The encyclopedias went back to fluttering around the room, and the rest of the books remained on their tracks around the room as though nothing had been asked. Above her, the pages that made up the towering roof turned a blank, clean white. 


End file.
